


This Halfway Thing

by amerande



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley POV, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, First Kiss (eventually), Food, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, More or Less Canon Compliant (More Like Canon Additive), POV Third Person, POV Third Person Not Omniscient But Sufficiently Nosy, Past Tense, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Pre-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Slow Burn, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-01-04 16:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21200462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amerande/pseuds/amerande
Summary: An unexpected encounter leaves Crowley badly hurt and starting to realize that perhaps things cannot simply continue as they have always been.--A hurt/comfort story spanning the last few hundred years before the end of the world. M Rating is mostly for mature themes (and just a little bit of the last chapter).





	1. 1837 AD

It was a dark and smoggy night. Although humans hadn’t actually coined the word “smog” yet, they were already experts at producing it: the nascent Industrial Revolution was setting records for spewing pollutants into the air at an ever-increasing pace. Factories belched out a perpetual smoke that clung to the buildings and the air right around head-height. Theologically, Crowley was all for the despoiling of Earth’s bounty. Personally, though, he missed the smell of clean air. It used to be plentiful but had been slowly on the decline since the thirteenth century, although he supposed the increase in smoke and particulates was offset somewhat by the humans’ significant strides in the areas of hiding and surreptitiously dealing with their nightsoil. _ Gain a little, lose a little, _he thought. 

Neither pollution nor the exceedingly late hour kept Londoners pent up in their homes—leastways, not in the parts of town which Crowley frequented. He’d just come from depositing an archdeacon at the door of an establishment whose business day was only just beginning. Not his favourite part of the job, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that it was, at least, the kind of place whose chief attractions had made their own choice to be there and did quite well for themselves. It helped, a little. 

Crowley was jolted out of his walking reverie by an abrupt sound from an alley off to his left—the thick slap of flesh-on-flesh cutting off a shout. He turned mid-stride and headed towards the noise, slit-pupiled eyes searching the darkness. Continuing sounds of a scuffle led him to them: two wretched forms crouched almost protectively over a child (Crowley was bad at human ages but guessed they couldn’t be more than eight or nine) who was doubled over and moaning weakly. 

“Evening,” he said, hands shoved in the pockets of his breeches.

“Get yourself away,” snarled one of the adults, “if you know what’s best for you.”

“That your kid?” Crowley asked as if they were exchanging opinions about the weather. 

“He is now,” said the other. This was accompanied by renewed whimpering and struggling from the child. 

“‘S’that so?” asked Crowley. “And—beg pardon—when was the last time you had communion? Confession? Anything like that?”

“You can bugger yourself with your questions, priest,” came the reply. 

Crowley smiled a tight-lipped smile into the darkness. “Not quite what I meant,” he said, and if there had been light to see it by, the two would-be kidnappers might have been tremendously alarmed by the sight of his forked tongue flickering out and tasting the tarnish on their souls. 

“Excsssellent,” he breathed. He pulled his hands from his pockets. 

Just a few moments and two soul-ripping shrieks later, the two adults were slumped lifelessly on the ground and a grinning Crowley hauled the child to his feet. 

“Thank G-God for you, Mister,” the boy said. He sounded a little less grateful and a little more terrified, but who could blame him? 

“No, don’t,” said Crowley. “D’you know where your home is?” 

The boy nodded mutely and pointed. 

“Good lad. Get yourself home, then. Don’t dawdle—and hail Satan.”

The boy hesitated for one bewildered moment, then took off like a startled deer in the direction he’d pointed. Crowley watched until he turned a corner, knowing that following the child would not precisely make matters better. 

“Well, _ well _,” hissed a voice in the darkness, and Crowley’s blood froze. His mind whirred into overdrive, trying to put odds on exactly how much trouble he was about to get himself into. 

“Hastur,” he said with all the casual disaffectedness he could muster. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

The inky shadows of the alleyway coalesced into two even inkier, shadowier forms. Two lords of Hell, Hastur and Dagon, stood there with hungry, excited looks about them. 

“Odd night’s work for a demon, Crowley,” said Hastur. 

“Oh, nothing special,” Crowley said. “Dropped the archdeacon off at the brothel and put a bob in his pocket. Little uninspired, I’ll grant you, but it’ll get the job d—“

“Save it, snake,” interrupted Dagon. 

“I meant just now. Explain yourself,” Hastur added. 

“Two souls secured for our master forevermore,” Crowley said blithely. 

“Not bad enough,” said Hastur. 

“What do you mean?” Crowley asked. “I saved them from any deathbed conversions or inspiring redemption arcs. Done and dusted.”

“And the whelp?”

“Planted the seeds of disbelief,” Crowley said glibly. “Plinked away at the foundation of his faith. Ten years from now, he’ll—_ hnngk_!”

_ Hnngk _was not at all what Crowley had meant to say. Dagon had startled the noise out of him with the simple expedient of a fist to the stomach. Before Crowley could recover, this was followed by several more infernally strong blows, including one to the side of his knees that resulted in him collapsing to the filthy ground in a graceless heap. 

“Nice try,” said Hastur, “but you’ll excuse us if we’re unimpressed.” He punctuated this with a brutal stomp to Crowley’s ribs which robbed him of the last of his breath. As a demon, Crowley did not _ need _to breathe, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless to be denied air, especially in such a manner. 

Dagon kicked the soft flesh of his side. “I never liked you,” they spat, and they lifted their leg again. 

With his final half-lucid thought, Crowley sent a desperate plea into the aether—not a prayer, but a supplication to the only being he believed in. It was a fool’s hope, but Crowley had always admitted himself to be a fool—at least in this one regard.

Dagon’s boot came down directly on Crowley’s face, and his vision blacked out. 

* * *

Crowley couldn’t have said how much later it was that he regained awareness, but when he did, it was all at once with excruciating pain and clarity. He screamed, howled in agony as his nerve endings tore themselves asunder, as his skin ripped away from his flesh, as every muscle and sinew stretched beyond its limit. He wasn’t sure if he was shouting in any language or perhaps in all of them, but his whole being was focused on one thought—_ make it end_. He begged for death, for utter exile, for the blankness of unbeing, whatever it took to escape the torment cracking apart the foundations of his very essence. 

As suddenly as the torture had begun, it stopped, and an emptiness that was somehow worse crashed through the channels of agony that had been carved into his body and self. His vision cleared of the bloody, electric-fire haze of pain, and he caught the briefest glimpse of a dimly lit room before he succumbed to oblivion.   


* * *

It was to his own tremendous surprise that Crowley woke again later. In the deep recesses of unconsciousness, some part of him had accepted that this was The End and had been grateful that never existing again would at least mean no more pain. There had been some regret, but if Crowley was good at anything, it was consigning himself to the inevitable, so it had not hurt very much. As he became more alert, his suppositions were proven more and more incorrect. At the very least, the pain was not at an end, which he supposed was a decent indicator that his existence was _ also _not finished. 

His very being felt bruised and wrung-out. Thudding aches radiated from his nose, his head, his lip, his chest, his legs, his hands—he gave up trying to inventory the individual hurts. 

Still, he was no longer in boiling torment, which was, well, something. 

With a thought, he miracled his corporation to wellness—and gasped in renewed agony as not only did it not take, but a force _ slammed _ into him, shoving him harder against whatever it was he was laying on and sending spikes of pain through all his injuries. At the same time, the damp smell of rotting earth and mildew hit him. The sensations overwhelmed him and tore away his feeble grip on consciousness. 

* * *

His third awakening was to the strong scent of herbs and the feeling of gentle pressure against most of his body and the distinct sense of a familiar Presence. It was this last impression which roused him fully to wakefulness and caused him to sit upright—or, rather, to attempt to do so before his corporation told him very firmly that such an activity was quite definitely off-limits at present. After just the barest of movements, he fell back with a groan. He hurt too much to even be grateful that he was, apparently, safe, heavily bandaged, and being cushioned by something soft and plush. 

“Crowley?” asked a voice from somewhere off to one side, and Crowley could have wept with relief. “Oh my, no, don’t even try—“ it continued, and then from the very corner of his one open eye, Crowley caught a glimpse of Aziraphale running into the room. “You must keep still, Crowley,” said the angel as he drew near the bed. 

Crowley moved his head in the barest of nods, having come to much the same conclusion himself. 

“You found me,” he said weakly, his voice grating with injury and wet with blood. 

“And a good thing I did,” Aziraphale responded. “Lying there in the night, beside those two poor humans, like a—well, never mind.” 

“What did they _ do_,” Crowley asked at length. “I feel…”

“I know, pet,” Aziraphale said soothingly. “They’d beaten you within an inch of discorporation, how ever did they manage—”

“Not that,” Crowley said. “Not humans. Demons.” He frowned. 

Aziraphale gave a soft gasp. “Oh, but how—and there _ were _two humans…” 

“Those were mine,” Crowley grunted. “Never mind that now, though—you found me in the alley? In London?”

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale said, looking alarmed. “Where else would…?”

“I was—it was torture, like the first fall into the pit, like…” he struggled for an adequate analogy to explain the sensation he’d had upon first regaining consciousness. He had half-convinced himself that he’d been brought back to Hell and then been returned somehow. 

“Ah, well,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley got the impression that if he could really look at the angel properly, he would catch him blushing. “You gave me quite a fright,” Aziraphale said, as if that explained anything at all. 

“...And?” Crowley prompted. 

“And I… well, I used a—you must understand, you were in such an awful state. I don’t know that I had any other choice.”

Crowley let out a hissing breath and waited. 

“I used a miracle,” Aziraphale said, his voice brimming with contrition. 

_ Ah. _

“A divine… fucking… blessing?” Crowley asked, his limited vision swimming. The last time he’d been personally touched by Grace was when it had been ripped away from him. That did rather explain the sensation of being torn apart, body and essence. “You idiot.” 

“I didn’t know what to do!” fretted Aziraphale. “I couldn’t _ feel _ any of you there, when I found you. It was like a… a human was lying there.” 

“Hastur.” Crowley said the name like a curse. “He did—something. When I woke up before, I tried my own miracle and it, it backfired, or something. I can’t heal myself from it.” 

“I panicked,” Aziraphale continued. “Tried to grant you a healing, but of course… well, it… _ sort of _worked.” 

Crowley thought of the sulfurous agony of his first waking and felt flames bite at his being at the mere memory. “Sort of worked?” he asked. If he’d had any energy, he would have filled the question with all the venom his snake-like self could muster. 

“Well, yes. Some of the more vital bits pieced themselves back together.”

That stopped Crowley’s train of thoughts in its tracks. 

“This is _ post_-healing?” he croaked. 

“Yes,” was all Aziraphale said, very quietly. That one word held so much anguish in it that Crowley found himself swamped by the ludicrous desire to reassure the angel, despite the fact that it was he himself who had taken the injuries. 

“I didn’t realize…” Crowley replayed the memory of the abuse his corporation had been subjected to and felt his body’s heart give a lurch. A human would have been lucky to wake up after being left on the street in the condition he remembered being in. And who was to say that he remembered all of it, that Dagon and Hastur hadn’t gone on beating him after he had lost consciousness? Without his own powers available to him, what could have happened if Aziraphale hadn’t found him and risked a miracle? He swore. 

“I _ am _ sorry to have done it,” the angel said, “only I wasn’t about to risk you discorporating—or worse.” 

_ Worse. _

Crowley made no response, his mind still wrapping itself around these revelations. Had the two demon lords meant for him to discorporate, or just to suffer? He suspected the latter, as discorporation was inconvenient at worst and not much of a punishment. _ Worse_, then. Being trapped inside a mortal vessel in agony seemed very much in keeping with what Crowley knew of Hastur’s _ modus operandi_. This was likely what passed for a first warning in Hell. Crowley made a note to endeavour not to merit a _ second _warning. 

“How are you feeling now?” prompted Aziraphale after several moments of silence. 

“Um,” said Crowley._ Frightened_, he thought. _ Hunted. And somehow—miraculously—lucky. _“Not… great.”

Aziraphale let out a huff of breath and Crowley knew he was rolling his eyes. 

“You’ll have plenty of time to practice being more thoroughly descriptive,” the angel said. “It’ll be weeks before you can leave, and that’s only if you’re cooperative.”

“Eh?”

“I’m given to understand that healing the mundane way is a tiresome, lengthy process.”

Crowley swore again. 

“It’ll be far more painful for me than for you, with that sunny disposition of yours,” Aziraphale said. He continued talking about his plans and preparations, including a lengthy detour about some books he’d recently picked up which just so happened to have some instructions regarding the care of injured human bodies. This time, when darkness crept through Crowley’s vision, it held no terror. The indistinct melody of the angel’s voice carried Crowley off to sleep. 

* * *

Crowley woke again in Aziraphale’s living area; he was greeted by the crackle of firewood, the smell of herbal tea, and the sight of Aziraphale sitting near his bedside, a woolen blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a thick cloth-bound book open in his hands. He seemed to be quite engrossed. 

He could sit so still—it was an entrancing contrast to his normal flurry of little movements and gestures. Crowley imagined that if he could only find a big enough book, Aziraphale could pass an unmoving decade reading as easily as Crowley could in sleep. 

“Angel,” he said after he grew tired of waiting for Aziraphale to look up from his book, “you can’t be serious about this.” 

“Hmm? Serious about what?” Aziraphale asked, marking his place and closing the book. 

“_ This_,” Crowley repeated. He tried to gesture to the room, but found that he could barely lift his arms. He winced, then glared when Aziraphale let out an ill-concealed chuckle. 

“You were saying?” Aziraphale asked pointedly. 

“This is a bad idea,” Crowley said. “Me, being here.” 

It was a bad idea because of the whole Heaven-and-Hell nonsense, of course, but more importantly, it was a mistake because it wasn’t what they _ did_. They brushed past each other and Crowley pined and kept his walls up and Aziraphale plinked away at them and if either of them went off-script for even a moment, Crowley feared that the whole thing would end in a pile of rubble that left him exposed and alone in a way he hadn’t been in nearly six thousand years. 

No matter how much he might wish it were otherwise, it was a bad idea because Crowley was an unforgivable demon who God Herself had decided was unworthy of love, and if they spent more than a long conversation in each other’s company, Aziraphale would surely remember that. The spiky bits of his personality would finally hurt the angel and that would be it; Aziraphale would recall that he was the Serpent of Eden and cast him out from the last place that mattered—his company.

Not that he could say _ any _of that. That was the whole point.

“And what ought I have done, then, dumped you out on the street and hoped you rolled to a safe haven downhill?” 

“Well—” he floundered. 

“You should have thought of that before you called for me,” Aziraphale said. 

Crowley sputtered. “Called you?” he asked. “What are you talking about?” 

Aziraphale regarded him with amusement. “Don’t play innocent, fiend, you do it poorly. Yes, _ called _ me. There I was, nose-deep in _ Lives of the Necromancers_, when what should I hear but your voice?”

“What—what did it say?” 

The angel pondered for a moment. “You know, I couldn’t tell you the exact words, now that I think about it. It was most definitely you, and I recall knowing that you needed help, but I can’t quite remember…” he trailed off. 

“And then? How did you _ find _me?” Laboriously, Crowley turned his head until he was looking directly at the angel.

“I’ve chalked it up to intuition,” Aziraphale said as he spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I followed the feeling of you—” something fluttered in Crowley’s stomach at hearing that phrase “—although I can’t say how since when I got to you, as I said, it was like all the…” he paused, and Crowley could swear he had heard a tremor in the angel’s voice “like you… weren’t there.” 

“Have you had that before? A sense of me?” 

Aziraphale pondered for a moment before answering. “We are rather good at finding each other, are we not?” he said at length. “I notice when you’re near—” there was that odd flutter again “—but no, I can’t say I’ve ever thought I could just walk out and find you like that. Whatever did you do?”

“Not sure,” Crowley said. His mind flickered back to that last moment of consciousness in the alley, to the idea he’d had, and followed, of sending out a call for help. It had been a half-crazed impulse, driven more by pain and fear than anything. And yet—it had worked, somehow. Aziraphale had heard him, and more than that, he’d _ found _him. 

Crowley suddenly found that he couldn’t look at the angel, and he shifted again to hide his face better. 

“It’s still daft, keeping me here,” he said after a while. 

“Yes, well, the moment you can walk through the front door under your own steam, you’re welcome to leave.”  


* * *

A week passed before Crowley was able to sit upright, and even then he was not precisely comfortable. Aziraphale was a constant nuisance, reminding him to breathe in deeply (“I _ know _ it hurts, you broke three ribs, you dolt”), force-feeding him soups (“Stop complaining, this body needs all the help it can get”), and fussing with his bandages (“You do _ not _ want to get an infection, believe me”). When he wasn’t flitting about playing nursemaid, the angel was parked firmly in his wing-backed chair right beside Crowley’s bed. He had a habit of responding out loud to whatever he was reading—a laugh here, a sigh there, and the occasional under-his-breath refutation of a point every now and again. After one such interlude, Crowley griped at him that it wasn’t very polite to have just half a conversation in front of him. Aziraphale had looked at him coolly and then started reading his book aloud, adding his own commentary as he went, which had of course _ not _ been the point, the _ point _ had been to get the angel to _ shut up_, but Crowley found himself listening with interest all the same. 

And if he found himself agreeing with all of Aziraphale’s points, and missing the sound of his voice whenever the angel was away acquiring supplies or going about his own business (infrequent as such occasions were), well, what of it? It was bloody _ boring _otherwise, and he couldn’t even sleep as he normally would have to pass the time—that is, he could sleep as a human might, but it turned out that humans did not frequently sleep for weeks, nor even days, at a time. 

Occasionally, he was jolted awake from what sleep he did get with horrible nightmares that seemed to blend the impossibly far past with all his most awful fears in the present and left him thrashing as he woke, making a frightful mess of his bandages and anything set too near him. Each time this happened, Aziraphale was close by. The angel would shush him gently, would put a warm, soft hand to his forehead, would softly whisper that it was _ okay, you’re safe, I’m here. _ Each time, those words pulled Crowley in from spiraling terror. Aziraphale would wait until he quieted down then set everything to rights, tuck the blankets snugly around Crowley, and move his chair ever so slightly closer to the bed. “ _ Back to sleep with you,” _ he’d say, “ _ it’s the best thing you can do to heal.” _

And heal he did. It was an infuriatingly slow process, but bit by bit the flesh and bone of his corporation knitted itself back together. By the time three weeks had passed, the splints on the fingers of his left hand came off and Aziraphale set him to practicing motions to rebuild strength. Crowley grumbled at this but eventually did what he was told, not bothering to wonder at the fact that the angel’s delighted encouragement felt like a reward rather than the pandering sop it was. After four weeks, most of his remaining bandages were able to come off. After six, Aziraphale removed the plaster from his ankle, and his face was healed enough that he could touch it—or, say, lie on his side—without too much pain. 

Throughout the process, Aziraphale danced attendance on him: the angel chivvied him into sitting upright even when he was tired, flexing his various limbs and joints repeatedly, and generally paying more attention to his corporation than the demon had done in the last several centuries combined. Crowley put on a good show of disgruntlement, but found it predictably impossible to be well and truly annoyed by the angel’s ministrations. 

There was one brief setback during the fifth week, when Crowley had thought once again to experiment with his miracles. Over the weeks, he had used them for small things—the first of which had been a change of clothes when Aziraphale suggested, a few days in, that he himself would need to attend to getting new clothing onto Crowley as the demon couldn’t very well wallow in the same outfit for weeks on end. Crowley had been mortified at the idea of such a service needing to be performed on his behalf and had conjured on a new set of pyjamas without even consciously deciding to do so. It had been more of a relief than he cared to admit to find himself still capable of such feats; Aziraphale’s fretting over how he had not “felt” like himself had left Crowley worried that he’d somehow been truly robbed of his powers, a concern he had quite carefully locked up, bound with chains, and buried in the deepest recesses of his mind before it could drive him over the brink. 

After five weeks of carefully avoiding miracles on his own person, though, he’d thought it was time to try something. He had been able to change his hair (it was now unfashionably long, falling to the middle of his back) and while Aziraphale wasn’t looking, he’d jabbed himself with a knife and was able to heal the damage from that. Feeling reassured, he’d tried to miracle away the remaining damage from his encounter in the alleyway—only to once again find himself buffeted back by an invisible force. 

When Aziraphale came in to find him crumpled on the bed, the angel had heaved a long-suffering sigh, asked if Crowley was aware that his instincts for self-preservation were vastly over-matched by his curiosity, and done a quick inventory to make sure that nothing was _ too _badly re-injured by the experiment. 

“How else was I supposed to find out whether it would work or not?” Crowley asked sourly.

“You might have at least enlisted my help,” Aziraphale said. “What if the knife bit hadn’t worked at all? A fine thing it would be, to have worked so hard to get you well again only to come in and find you exsanguinated on the floor.”

He had a point, of course, but Crowley only grumbled in response. 

Now that he knew his power was not entirely lost to him, Crowley was able to examine the question of what, precisely, Hastur and Dagon might have done. He discussed it with the angel; there wasn’t a wealth of documented research on the ability of celestial or infernal beings to impose injury or disability on one another, but they came at last to the conclusion that once Crowley’s wounds from the encounter were healed, he’d be back to normal and no longer hampered. As to what Crowley might do in the future to avoid or negate such interference, Aziraphale had no good ideas. The question wriggled around uncomfortably in Crowley’s mind, no matter how much he might try to put it aside. 

* * *

A strange thing happened as Crowley healed: Aziraphale didn’t stop doting on him. Even as his human body needed less and less help taking care of the injuries, Aziraphale continued feeding him, for example. Crowley had begun flatly refusing the thin soups which had filled the early days, but in response the angel had merely begun fetching more and more enticing delicacies to present to him. It would be rude, the demon explained to himself, to turn up his nose at those, too. And despite the fact that Crowley now needed considerably less (if, indeed, any) supervision, Aziraphale still spent a great deal of his time sat in his chair near the demon, reading or doing his accounts or talking. 

One Sunday evening, when the angel was away from the shop, Crowley had hauled his poor frame downstairs, curious as to the state of the shop in its proprietor’s preoccupation. He’d all but crawled to the front door, where he’d seen a sign: _ Closed Until Further Notice_, it said. _ Family Emergency_. His heart had thumped oddly at reading the note, and he’d slumped against the door for a while before pulling himself back upstairs. 

The difficult part of it was not, Crowley admitted, putting up with the angel’s behavior. No, the true tribulation came in trying to _ appear _impatient with the attention. The indulgent warmth that flooded him whenever the angel was being particularly adorable made keeping up his aura of casual disinterest agonizingly difficult. Crowley was famously so bad at accommodating company that he’d not only gotten himself kicked out of Heaven and into Hell, but then he’d gotten himself stationed on this little rock to get away from his fellow demons. In the past, he’d told himself that he simply didn’t see Aziraphale often enough—once or twice in one century, a handful of times in another decade—to chafe at his company (and vice versa). Yet these weeks were proving how foolish and futile that long-running self-deception has been. 

Grow weary of Aziraphale? He now had incontrovertible proof that such a thing was as unlikely as losing his awe of the stars. Like growing bored of the very idea of music. It would be losing a part of himself more fundamental than the grace which had been stripped from him when he fell. It was more than impossible; it was no longer even imaginable. 

It was a biting irony that now, finally faced by the circumstances he’d always assumed were out of his reach and would drive him nutters anyway, Crowley found himself bending his every energy toward not enjoying himself overmuch, lest the whole thing collapse like a poorly made flan.

(Aziraphale had recently brought him a flan of surpassing craftsmanship. Crowley himself had taken only a few bites, as the sight of Aziraphale enjoying the rest was far sweeter and more satisfying.) 

So he grew more waspish. As far as he could see, there was no alternative. He flexed his healing fingers when told to and refused to allow Aziraphale to help, lest he find himself trying to entwine those fingers with the angel’s. He paced around the room to rebuild his strength and snapped when Aziraphale stepped in to steady him for fear he’d never let go of the angel afterwards. Yet his discipline was not perfect, and too often he found himself leaning into the angel’s touch when Aziraphale pushed his hair back from his brow or patted him on the shoulder. 

Around the middle of the ninth week, several truths occurred to Crowley at once: that he was certainly recovered sufficiently, now, to leave the premises under his own steam; that if he did not do so soon, he risked alienating the angel either by being too forthright or too churlish; and that admitting himself healed and leaving would forever end this level of involvement in the angel’s life. He had spent the majority of each day with Aziraphale for more than two months—how many years would it be before he could see him again, after he left? They’d spoken for hours every day—how many times in the next decade would he hear the angel’s voice? 

He disliked the thought of leaving, but saw little choice as he abhorred the thought of being _ asked _ to leave. In their past acquaintance, Aziraphale had occasionally indicated that whatever social frivolity they were enjoying should end soon as the angel had business to attend to, and Crowley had largely succeeded in not taking such hints personally. He was very sure he could not summon the same equanimity if the angel politely suggested that he had overstayed his welcome in this case.   


* * *

The decision was taken out of his hands several days later. It was early in the afternoon and a pleasant summer drizzle drummed lazily against the window. Aziraphale was, as ever, in his chair, although now his stockinged feet were propped up on the bed. Crowley was sprawled on top of the bed trying desperately to project an air of malaise and weakness despite feeling quite recovered. They had been in the middle of some conversation at one point, but had somehow let it slide into a drowsy sort of quietness that Crowley had never known could be enjoyable. 

He was well on his way to a lovely nap when the dreadfully bright sound of an ethereal bell sounded from downstairs, and a voice rang out.

“Aziraphale?"

The angel’s face went bone-white as he snapped his book shut and locked eyes with Crowley. 

“It’s Gabriel,” he hissed in a panicked whisper. “Stay here.” 

Crowley nodded mutely. Aziraphale set down the book and briefly covered one of Crowley’s hands with his own.

“Just a moment!” he called loudly enough to be heard downstairs. With a final look, he stood up and scurried from the room. 

The sounds of conversation drifted up the staircase: sharp, abrupt noises from Gabriel and fluttering responses from Aziraphale that Crowley couldn’t quite make out. Even without words, though, he heard the thread of anxiety in his angel’s voice, and for the first time in months, he remembered—really _ remembered_, not just as an abstract annoyance—why it was they normally stayed so far away from each other. 

That was it, then. What if Gabriel was here about Crowley’s presence? If they’d been seen, if someone had found out—even the merest suspicion—what would that mean for the angel? Even if the archangel’s visit had been incidental, what if he could smell a demon the same way that Crowley could even now begin to detect a whiff of the overripe scent of someone who spent too much time Above?

Another thought caught him—what if Aziraphale _ didn’t _ come back with the archangel, but was reminded of the danger of their situation all the same? It’d be over just as surely. Aziraphale would come back upstairs and sigh at him. “Nearly had us there,” he’d say, “Probably best you be off,” and Crowley would have to _ look at him_, would have to _ thank him, _would have to pretend that, yeah, it really was time for me to be getting on, wasn’t it? He’d have to come up with some impossibly insipid parting shot like “At least now I’ll get some peace and quiet” or perhaps a joke about being behind on his temptation quota and—no, it was all just too horrible to face. He couldn’t do any of that. 

Those were his two options, then, if he stayed: condemn Aziraphale, or be condemned and cast out himself.

With barely more than a thought, Crowley vanished from the room and reappeared in the townhouse that was not his _ home_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tremendous thanks to [curlycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for being a terrific beta. Thanks also to twitter user @Dame_Mechanus 
> 
> Thanks for reading! This was the longest chapter as it does all the set up for what comes next, but the whole story has been written so I should be posting fairly regularly. 
> 
> In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you thought of this! I'll always reply to comments~


	2. 1862 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The infamous meeting at St. James' Park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for a very brief and non-specific suicide reference.

Crowley stared at the door of A. Z. Fell & Co. Booksellers and fidgeted with the envelope in his hands. It wasn’t addressed, but he knew he could slip it into the slot letterbox and it would be read by its intended recipient. It was the simplest thing: reach out, flip open the letterbox cover, insert the envelope, release it from his fingers. All the most mundane and mechanical of actions. And yet…his mouth felt dry.

Twenty-five years. It had been _ twenty-five years _ since he’d spoken with Aziraphale. He’d _ seen _him a time or two—a decade ago, he’d spotted him in the crowd at the Great Exhibition, and in the early ‘40s he’d caught a glimpse of the angel in the dining room at John S. Sweetings Fish and Oyster Merchant. (Aziraphale had been alone. At the time, Crowley had been meant to be making sure an important deal was brokered, but he had found he suddenly needed to excuse himself. He’d gotten quietly drunk and stayed that way for three weeks straight, then slept the rest of the year for good measure.) But when was the last time they’d passed a quarter of a century without passing through each other’s orbit, without some intentional contact? He’d lost track; perhaps it had been after Rome? 

Crowley had spent much of the time apart thinking over The Arrangement. Hastur and Dagon showing up in an alley in London to question his actions had rent a gaping crack through the foundation of the life he’d built over the millennia. He’d always rested secure in the assumption that as long as enough miracles and temptations were performed, as long as each side felt reasonably confident that events on Earth were working out in their own favor, nobody would nose around too closely in his business. And if Hell’s warning shot had been to beat him into agony and strip away his ability to defend himself, what came next would probably be awfully final. Being proven wrong in his assumptions—especially in such a memorable way—had left him feeling profoundly vulnerable and unsafe, a uniquely unpleasant combination. 

(Best not to dwell on its opposite: when Aziraphale had nursed him back to health, he’d felt the safest he had since eons ago when his wings had been white and he’d scattered stars as he danced through the vaults of the sky.) 

That exposed feeling had brought him here to request a meeting with Aziraphale. Assuming the angel would still have anything to do with him, he’d thought of a way he could prepare against future unpleasantness from Hell. Once he had that, he could take a few more judicious risks. Maybe he could offer a similar solution to Aziraphale—twenty-five years had not blunted the impact of Aziraphale’s obvious fear at the archangel’s presence. Maybe he’d go in for an offer of mutual protection. Crowley didn’t know if it would change anything, but it seemed to be worth a try—although a scornful, rebellious part of his mind asked if he wasn’t just getting desperate enough that he seized upon any convenient excuse to contact the angel again. 

If he stood here on the front step of the bookshop much longer, he was liable to run into Aziraphale himself. How embarrassing, to be caught scratching at the door like a dog waiting to be let into the warmth of the home. 

With one last calming breath, Crowley dropped the letter into the slot and beat a hasty retreat.   


* * *

  


The next day, Crowley lurked underneath the shadowy boughs of a tree in St. James’ Park and watched the rendezvous point. He was counting ducks and swans and definitely _ not _ dwelling on questions such as _ What if Aziraphale doesn’t show up? _ and _ What if Aziraphale _ does _ show up? _ and _ What if Aziraphale shows up with angelic reinforcements? _—had he counted that small family of ducks close to the bridge? Better start over. 

He’d just reached the same tally for the second time in a row (allowing for one group which had hidden away behind some bushes toward the end of the first count) when Aziraphale appeared. As the angel walked toward their meeting point, Crowley could see him wring his hands, then flex them, then wring them again as he looked around. Coming to a stop at their usual place along the fence, Aziraphale seemed to take a deep breath, and his frenetic movements stilled. 

Crowley felt his heart beating in his throat. True, the angel might be so anxious because he was a terrible liar and was being used as bait in a trap to catch Crowley, but the demon didn’t believe that. He was no expert at body language, but in Aziraphale’s movements, he thought he could read the same anxiety he’d been living with since deciding they needed to meet again: _ What now? What does it mean? What will he say? _

Gripping his cane tightly, Crowley stepped out of the shadows and walked over. As he approached, the feeling of Aziraphale’s presence nearly overwhelmed him. It was all he could do to sidle up next to the angel, rather than either run away or cling to him. 

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” he said without preamble, not looking at his companion. “What if it all goes wrong? We’ve got a lot in common, you and me. We’re both—”

_ Traitors_, he had meant to say, but Aziraphale interrupted him. “We may have both started out as angels, but _ you _are Fallen.”

Crowley’s heart sank. When was the last time he’d heard the angel sound so sanctimonious? “I didn’t—didn’t really fall,” he said in a pathetic attempt to fend off the accusation. “I just, you know...sauntered vaguely downwards. Anyway, I need a favor.”

“We already have the agreement, Crowley. We stay out of each other’s way, lend a hand when needed…” 

Raw and on-edge as he was, the force of hearing the angel refer to _ months _of togetherness as merely a contractual obligation hit Crowley like a physical blow. 

“Is that all this is, to you? A business arrangement?”

Aziraphale answered his question with another one. “Isn’t that precisely what you proposed?” 

Crowley floundered, caught off-guard. _That’s all I thought you would accept_, he could not say. _That’s all I dared hope for, and more than I deserved. _He had thought that just an acquaintance, just a taste, just the barest of connections, would be enough. He’d grown greedy. Hundreds of years of this arrangement, of little conversations and compromises and clandestine meetings, until he’d allowed himself to _wish_, to let tiny tendrils of hope wind their way around his heart. All things he could not say.

This was it: the doom he’d known he’s been consigning himself to when he stayed and let Aziraphale nurse him to health. He’d been starved for so long, and then gorged himself, and now turned up his nose at the scraps that would once have seemed a banquet. 

“This is…something else. For if it all goes pear-shaped.”

Aziraphale’s expression softened. “I like pears.” 

“If it all goes _ wrong_. I can’t...I need insurance.”

“What?”

“I wrote it down,” Crowley said, and he handed over a scrap of paper with _ holy water _scribbled on it. “Walls have ears. No walls here—trees have ears. Ducks have ears. Do ducks have ears?” He squinted at a pair floating by. “Must do. That’s how they hear other ducks.” 

Aziraphale was already shoving the paper back in his hand, looking outraged—or was it terrified? “Absolutely out of the question!”

“Why not?”

“It would destroy you. I’m not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley.” 

Hearing that his oldest congenial acquaintance didn’t want to see him utterly destroyed should probably have been less of a relief than it was. And yet… if Aziraphale had been having regrets or had been coerced by his upper management, this would have been a perfect opportunity to have quietly gotten Crowley out of the way. That his first and immediate response had been to voice concern for Crowley’s safety seemed a good sign. 

Of course, his concern was only partially misplaced. Certainly, Crowley’s first intended use for holy water was as a way to defend himself if Hell ever decided that he wasn’t living down to their expectations of him. But the other potential use, well… Eternity was a long time to spend as graceless demon alone, once the Earth was done away with. Crowley wasn’t above admitting (at least to himself) that he didn’t mind having an escape route. 

“That’s not what I want it for. Just insurance,” Crowley explained, pressing the paper back into the angel’s hand. “In case they come back.” 

“I’m not an idiot, Crowley.” 

Crowley wisely did not respond to that. 

After a moment, Aziraphale spoke again. 

“Do you know what trouble I’d get into if they knew I’d been… fraternizing? It’s completely out of the question.”

_ Ah_. 

The question hung between them like a lead curtain. Crowley _ did _know what trouble the angel would be in for if they were discovered. His request hadn’t been made in ignorance of that danger; to the contrary, he’s been wracking his brains to come up with a similar solution for Aziraphale. But to hear it phrased that way… As if this could happen between just anybody. As if Crowley were any demon. As if this were some naughty dalliance, not the most important relationship in Crowley’s whole existence. The phrase twisted through him like a knife, and he lashed out in response.

“That’s not what I’d call it, angel. Not this. I have plenty of other people to _ fraternize _with.” 

“Of course you do,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley steeled himself against the wounded expression in his eyes. 

“If that’s what you think, I don’t need to waste my time further.”

“Nor mine,” said Aziraphale. “I don’t know what I expected, what with the way you ran out after…” he cut himself off and looked away. 

“Pick an argument, angel,” Crowley retorted with enough rancor to overwhelm the stir of guilt he felt when Aziraphale said that. “Are you worried about being caught _ fraternizing _with me, or are you upset that I made myself scarce when your boss showed up for a surprise inspection?” 

Aziraphale’s cheeks were bright spots of pink and his eyes were shining. “I am _ not _ upset about that. As if I could possibly be surprised or _ upset _that an ungrateful demon would take advantage of my aid and then leave without a word!” 

Crowley took a step back from the heat in the angel’s words. “Took adv—why you—as if to say I—!” Speech deserted at him, and he was forced to content himself with other vague noises of outrage. 

“Well what am I meant to think, when you just up and disappear like that?”

All of Aziraphale’s disjointed arguments were chasing each other through Crowley’s mind and dizzying him. _ I’m not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley. Do you know what trouble I’d get into if they knew I’d been fraternizing? The way you ran out… _None of them lined up. “Angel, please,” he said weakly, all anger sapped out of him in an instant. “I don’t understand what you want from me.” 

Aziraphale stared at him for a moment, eyes wide and mouth soft. Crowley waited, heart and mind racing. Just when he had begun to think a straightforward answer might be forthcoming, Aziraphale drew himself up, hands in fists at his side. “Nothing. Obviously.” Aziraphale said, and he turned on his heel and walked away.

Crowley watched Aziraphale as he left and saw the angel turn and throw the scrap of paper into the lake. It lit on fire and Crowley glumly watched as it turned to ashes, which were broken up by the gentle ripples on the water.

“Obviously,” he mimicked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'll have another chapter up in just a couple of days, both to celebrate the US release of the Good Omens blu-ray/DVD and to make up for this mostly repeating canon. 
> 
> Thanks as ever to ao3 and tumblr user curlycrowley for the beta!


	3. 1941 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rescue, a car ride, and a drink.

Staying up-to-date on the war in general and on the activities of Nazi spies in London in particular was a good business decision. Crowley was able to sound quite well-informed in memos to Head Office and (more importantly) also to attend the same pub as certain spies and conspicuously spill his beer on them whenever the fancy took him. So it was that he’d known for a while about the goal to acquire prophetic texts and other mystical rubbish for the Führer. He didn’t quite think his way through what that could mean until he caught a whisper of the name “Mr. Fell,” upon which occasion he swore so profoundly that the air around him did in fact begin to turn blue. Then, like any sensible demon trying to keep abreast of the political machinations of nations (definitely not a demon with a particular and personal interest in one hapless idiot of an angel), he rooted around in his unwitting informant’s head until he got all the details of the plan, then removed the man’s memory of the encounter. 

On the night the delivery was meant to happen, Crowley was lurking near the church. He was not, he told himself firmly, intending to interfere. This was merely professional curiosity—surely Aziraphale wasn’t really so thick as to walk into such an obvious trap. Surely, _ surely_, the angel had some trick up his sleeve from which Crowley might learn. Understanding more of Aziraphale’s tactics and how his approach might have changed in the last seventy-nine years since they’d interacted would help Crowley work against him in the future. 

It certainly wasn’t because the allure of being near Aziraphale was impossible to resist. Not due to an impulsive, instinctual, all-consuming need to make sure the angel was all right. Not because the mere chance of hearing his voice, however indistinctly, however much it was a stolen moment of which he should be ashamed, was worth any inconvenience. 

He had given the self-deception up as a bad job when he heard Aziraphale exclaim about paperwork, of all things. 

The consecrated ground made the rescue a little less dashing and heroic than Crowley might have otherwise preferred it to be, but he was pleased with the effect all the same. When the bomb fell, he felt a blessing shimmer around him like a warm cloak, like an embrace—no pain, as it wasn’t directed at him so much as the air around him, just a gentle hum of protection. At the same time, he had a split-second epiphany and threw a shield around the man holding the books. Or, rather, he shielded the man’s hand and its parcel. At the very next instant, the rest of the man (his soul, specifically) went on to its final reward. Crowley could almost hear the screaming, but he put it out of his mind. 

“That was very kind of you,” Aziraphale said as the debris settled, and Crowley stifled a sigh of satisfaction to see the angel unharmed. 

“Shut up,” he said as casually as he could manage, and he intentionally echoed Aziraphale’s own words to him. “Wasn’t about to risk you discorporating, or worse.” 

The angel started at the familiar phrase, his eyes going wide. 

“I mean, for one thing, if anybody Down There heard about how easily you were bamboozled, they’d blame me for not getting you out of the picture sooner.”

Aziraphale made a moue of annoyance, then schooled his features once again. “Well, it _ was _ kind, all the same.” Then he paused, and horror so comically total that it was all Crowley could do to keep a straight face dawned over his features. “Oh! The books!” He turned about him, hands outstretched as if to feel around for them in the air. “I forgot all the books!”

Sucking on his teeth so as not to give the game away, Crowley walked over to where the briefcase stuck out of the rubble, clutched in an outstretched hand. He yanked it free and turned to Aziraphale, offering it up like a prayer. 

“Little demonic miracle of my own,” he said, and his heart soared straight out of his corporation at the sight of Aziraphale’s soft shock. The touch of the angel’s hand on his thumb when he took hold of the briefcase nearly shook Crowley’s atoms apart. 

“Lift home?” he asked, tossing the offer across like it was nothing. _ What? _That hadn’t been part of his design. The plan, however obfuscated, had been to come in, save Aziraphale, and retreat to lick his wounds. But it was out there now. He stepped past Aziraphale and headed out of the church, walking down the aisle and not waiting to see if he was followed. If he didn’t look back to check, he could pretend the angel hadn’t heard, wasn’t deliberately choosing not to come with him. He could keep the memory of his face, shining with delight and surprise, as the last memory of the night. 

As he stepped over what used to be the threshold of the church, he heard the scramble of Aziraphale following him and could have fainted with relief.

“I’m just in Soho, still have the bookshop,” Aziraphale volunteered, and Crowley nodded. As if he didn’t know. As if he hadn’t stood on a nearby corner as if in vigil some nights, hoping he might catch a glimpse of the angel’s face—and hoping he wouldn’t. 

“Easy enough,” he said, and he opened the passenger door of the Bentley so Aziraphale could seat himself. He closed it after the angel and wondered what in _ either _of the eternal kingdoms he’d gotten himself into. 

_ Should I ask for directions? _he wondered as he turned the ignition. It wasn’t remarkable to have remembered the place after all the times he’d visited, was it? Probably not. He gripped the steering wheel in a white-knuckled vise and began to drive. 

Aziraphale sat with the valise perched in his lap, both hands gripping it as if someone might try to wrest it from him if he weren’t careful.

“Been driving long?” he asked after a time, his voice high with strain. 

“A bit,” Crowley said.

“And y-you, erm, you got your competency license?” 

Crowley rolled his eyes as he took a corner at breakneck speed. “Yeah,” he said. 

No need, he reasoned, to specify _ how _ he’d gotten it. 

“Only I can’t help but notice you’re driving a trifle recklessly.”

“You’d rather dally and get hit by a bomb?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale made no response, and the rest of the ride passed in a rough silence that sent Crowley’s insides twisting about themselves like serpents, threatening to choke him. 

When they reached the bookshop, Aziraphale shifted his hold on the briefcase and didn’t move to get out of the car. Crowley waited.

“I don’t suppose,” Aziraphale said haltingly, “I don’t suppose you’d care to come in? For a nightcap. I mean, it’s the least I can offer, after all the paperwork you’ve saved me…”

Crowley nearly asked the angel to repeat himself, certain he must have misheard. But there was no mistaking the invitation in his eyes, shining like two full moons in the darkness, so open and bright. He may as well have bound and commanded the demon; Crowley had no better chance of turning him down either way. 

“Yeah all right,” he said, and he killed the engine. 

* * *

Crowley spent the first hour barely staying afloat as waves of memories crashed into him. Aziraphale’s voice had been his safe harbor, his anchor keeping him from being dragged to sea. He’d plied the demon with drinks and stories and had the decency not to comment on Crowley’s sudden discomfiture. 

It took most of a bottle of gin before the familiarity of Aziraphale’s living area became comfortable rather than agonizing. As he allowed the alcohol to inebriate him, Crowley gradually relaxed and started pulling his weight in the conversation. A few of his jibes were rewarded with the sort of open, honest laugh from Aziraphale that made all the tiresome duplicity and paranoia worth it. 

“This isn’t half-bad,” he said some time later, holding the gin up in a wobbly salute.

“I’m rather pleased with it, yes. Been looking for a reason to try it.”

“Lucky I’m here, then,” Crowley said before he could think better of it. Belatedly, he adopted the most outrageously smug expression he could muster. Let the angel think it another joke. 

“Indeed I am,” Aziraphale said. There was no levity in his tone. 

“You know,” the angel continued, “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Well why would you have?” Crowley asked. “Pretty safe to bet a demon won’t show up in a church.” Only then did he realize the trap he’d set for himself. If Aziraphale pressed him for precisely how and why he’d come to be there, Crowley wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer honestly. 

“No, not tonight,” Aziraphale said. Before Crowley could feel relief, though, he continued: “I meant at all.” 

Crowley froze.

The angel set down his glass and leaned forward. 

“I thought I’d scared you off for good, last time,” Aziraphale said, his voice low and strained.

_ Shit_, Crowley thought. _ What am I meant to make of that? _ The angel didn’t seem displeased at the night’s turn of events—he’d appeared downright _ happy _ back at the church. _ Had he really thought—? But why? _

“I oughtn’t have treated you as I did,” Aziraphale continued. 

Crowley waved the thought away with a lazy flick of his wrist. “Come off it, angel,” he began—

“No, it was unkind of me,” Aziraphale interjected. “To act as if our… acquaintance is a one-sided burden. To blame you for leaving when you did.”

Crowley was gratified to note that “acquaintance” was several steps friendlier than the tone Aziraphale had taken about their arrangement upon their last conversation. 

“All the same,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley’s heart sank as he waited for the other shoe to drop, “we must tread carefully.”

It was all Crowley could do to not point out that treading carefully was _ exactly _what he’d had in mind when he requested the holy water. Insurance; an escape plan to buy them time to run if Hell caught them at it. Given how adamantly opposed to the plan Aziraphale had been, however, arguing the point seemed fruitless. Instead, he contented himself with a question. “What’s that mean, though? Treading carefully.” 

“All the things we’ve already established. Public meeting places. Safety. Plausible deniability.” 

“You say as we sit in your parlour,” Crowley observed. 

The angel wrung his hands, anxiety writ plainly on his face. “I had to apologize,” he explained. 

It was as if all the air had been pumped out of the room. The angel’s words were brittle and fell flat, cracking in the silence. 

“Apology delivered,” Crowley said woodenly, his throat suddenly dry. “Is that my cue to go?” 

Aziraphale didn’t respond immediately, his face pinched and miserable. “It’s certainly safer that way,” he said after several agonizing heartbeats. 

The way Crowley’s head was spinning had nothing to do with alcohol. Dimly, he realized he was still holding the glass—he put it down before he could accidentally spill or shatter it. This felt too horribly familiar: Aziraphale talking in circles, at cross-purposes with himself. Drawing him in close and then slamming the door right on his nose. Crowley was more keenly aware than ever of just how much the angel kept locked away, of how much of an _ outsider _he was to this, his dearest friend. 

“You’re talking nonsense again,” he said, more roughly than he’d intended. “You want me here, don’t you? I want to _ be _here. Why are you asking me to leave?”

“I couldn’t survive seeing you like that again,” Aziraphale said. The words fell on Crowley like the first rain in Eden, new and alien and ominous and wonderful. “I’m—I know how that sounds—” (_ Do you? _Crowley wondered) “—and I know I’m not making sense. It’s just, no matter what I want—” he cut himself off. “That is to say, it’s too much to risk.”

The air crowded in all around Crowley, smothering him, pressing those words in closer and closer to him until everything else lost form and meaning. _ No matter what I want_, he’d said. _ I know how that sounds_, he’d said. But it sounded… it sounded an awful lot like he’d come very close to expressing a hope so wild, so impossible, that Crowley didn’t dare think to put a name to it. 

He stood up from the couch, ears ringing, and even he wasn’t sure what it was he intended to do. Aziraphale stared up at him, expression inscrutable and eyes earnest and _ hurting_. Crowley staggered back from him. 

“That’s not your choice to make,” he managed to say, and he turned and fled the bookshop. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Good Omens US physical series release day! I will be back this weekend with another chapter—one that doesn’t overlap with events from the series. In the mean time, thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
> 
> Tremendous thanks to [curlycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for being a terrific beta.


	4. 1954 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting at the end of the war.

It was, truly, a coincidence. Crowley was well on his way to finding out exactly how large a bill one could rack up at Kettner’s without being asked to provide a surety when he noticed Aziraphale walk in. The angel was shown to a little table, where he sat and perused the menu. Crowley raised his glass to the bartender in a mock toast, then walked over, snagged a chair from a nearby vacant table, and seated himself opposite the angel.

Aziraphale looked up and then quickly away, and Crowley flattered himself to think he caught a bit of a blush on the angel’s lovely face. When Aziraphale looked at him again, it was with a soft smile.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley shrugged noncommittally. “Gotta do something to pass the time. You?”

“Just seeing how they’re faring with the end of rationing.”

“All your favorites back on the menu?”

Aziraphale inspected it a moment longer. “That does appear to be the case,” he said with evident satisfaction.

“Y’know that rationing doesn’t exactly apply to us? You could always just…” Crowley fluttered his fingers demonstratively.

“It isn’t the same.”

“Is there really a difference?”

Aziraphale tutted at him. “You mean you hadn’t noticed for yourself?”

“Might be harder to tell with alcohol,” Crowley said dismissively. He didn’t precisely abstain from eating, but he’d certainly never been so desperate for food that he’d made his own.

The two of them received significantly better service than Crowley had while alone; he wondered if Aziraphale was greatly in favor with someone in particular, or if _everyone _found him impossible to resist. Certainly couldn’t blame everyone else if that were the case; what hope did humans have against such celestial charms? For no matter what else he might be (_stuffy, rigid,_ and _bewildering_ were some of the first words to leap to Crowley’s mind as he considered this), Aziraphale was above all else charming—after all, hadn’t Crowley himself fallen under the angel’s spell in the first few moments of their acquaintance?

He found himself entranced anew as Aziraphale dug into his beef bourguignon, his delight evident in every movement. He ate primly—almost daintily—his manners exquisite, but with such obvious enthusiasm as to still make it seem practically indecent to witness. Each time the angel’s eyes drifted closed as if of their own accord, every time he gave a soft sound of satisfaction, Crowley’s heart gave an odd sort of thump as if it were trying to escape.

“Wouldn’t you like anything, my dear?”

“Not to eat,” Crowley said absently.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and an unguarded look that Crowley couldn’t quite read flashed upon his face. Then his expression hardened and he pursed his lips in what the demon could only interpret as displeasure. Crowley panicked, wondering why his mouth always ran ahead of his better judgement.

“Crowley…”

“I didn’t—I just meant I think if there’s…” _Fuck_, what had he gotten himself into? “... something that we both want, why are you working so hard to avoid it?”

Silently, he remonstrated himself: Here he was, seeing the angel for the first time in more than a decade, and he couldn’t help but needle at the argument that had driven him away last time. Why? All through the ages of Earth’s history, he had been content with what was on offer—acquaintanceship, company, the small redeeming graces of friendship—and now he felt it all near to breaking under the strain of what it _could be _but was not.

“I told you,” Aziraphale said, “it’s too much of a risk.”

“Doesn’t have to be! We could find a way to be safe, I know we could.” The angel looked surprised at his vehemence; Crowley pressed the point: “You’re so clever, there’s got to be something you could think up. I thought the holy water was a good start, and we could find something for your lot, but if you don’t like it then we can come up with something else!”

In the silence that followed, Crowley realized that he’d gone and put his foot in it. He waited, anxious, _willing _Aziraphale to give him an answer, to not just shut the conversation down.

“That’s what you meant by… insurance?”

_In for a penny, in for a pound_, Crowley thought grimly.

“Yes. Something to, to even the odds. Get me—us—time to get away. Big old universe out there, plenty of places we could disappear with enough of a head start.”

For nearly six thousand years he’d never come right out and said what he wanted, what he felt certain down to his very core that Aziraphale also wanted. And now, in a roundabout sort of way, he’d as good as done it. It wasn’t the most explicit declaration, but there were only so many ways to interpret it. He’d finally got it out there that he’d choose Aziraphale over Hell, and he hoped Aziraphale would choose him over Heaven, and that he wouldn’t mind running away from everything with him.

He needed another drink. Why could he never leave well enough alone?

“Crowley, listen to yourself.”

“We could find a way,” Crowley repeated stubbornly, helplessly.

Aziraphale drew in a sharp breath but made no response. His face was twisted up in confusion and hurt, and he held Crowley’s gaze with his own for an impossibly long time.

“Angel,” Crowley said weakly. “Think about it. This, this half-way _thing_, you don’t really think it’d keep us safe? What was it the Almighty said? ‘If you’re not for me…’”

“You are against me,” Aziraphale finished miserably.

“Does that sound like someone who’s going to give a rat’s arse about whatever careful boundaries you’ve drawn around this? Whatever invisible lines you tell yourself you didn’t cross?”

The angel didn’t answer, just looked away. His face was turned from Crowley as if he was looking out at the restaurant, but his expression remained shuttered and pained.

“Stop asking me to destroy you,” Aziraphale whispered, still not looking at him.

Crowley brought a fist crashing down onto the table. “Stop telling yourself that _this _is saving me!”

A tear streaked down the angel’s cheek, with more threatening, and Crowley’s heart twisted so violently he thought it might break. He snapped his fingers once to pay the bill, then stood and left the table in a rush.

When he reached the threshold of the dining room he looked back once, but Aziraphale was still turned away.

* * *

It was a miracle (or rather, several miracles) that Crowley and the Bentley both got home without mishap. The shaking in his hands hadn’t subsided by the time he returned to his flat. Once inside, he paced viciously from one room to the next. It was the only way to keep ahead of the choking sorrow that rose like bile in his throat and churned in his wake.

His mind, too, was a frantic mess. It jumped like a spider from thought to emotion, sampling each one before flinging itself to the next.

There was loneliness, certainly, and fear. He could and did feel hurt by Aziraphale’s rejection. Fury he had in plenty: a withering scorn for the Creator who would make one of Her servants so afraid. That more than anything, perhaps. Bad enough that She cut Crowley himself off from grace and from Her love. But to hold that self-same threat over Aziraphale’s head? To make Her most perfect creation cringe and cower? It was monstrous.

“Fine!” he exclaimed at last to nobody. “Stop asking you? Fine! I’ll get the damn water on my own. I don’t need you, angel.”

Hearing those words out loud brought him up short. His mind and pacing both stopped as the words fell into silence.

Was it true?

Yes, he supposed it was.

It would be nice, he supposed, to _need _him. To have something to point at, to be able to say “see, this is why.” But he was an entire being. He only _wanted _Aziraphale. His sole claim on the angel was desire.

_Not just desire, _a traitorous part of him whispered, and it went on to say what he had not allowed himself to think in the whole of human history. _Love. _

He didn’t know Aziraphale’s heart of hearts; he could not predict what the angel might do if the threats from on high were absent. Ultimately, it changed very little: while he might very much wish his love to be requited, loving him was its own satisfaction.

The admission did not hurt like he had expected. Even now, in the aftershocks of the argument, he could not feel heartbroken by the impossibility of it.

Aziraphale was in an awful position. He could do this for his friend, his love: he could choose to not make the angel’s balancing act harder. Aziraphale had asked him to stop; he would respect that. He would not push him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'll likely have another chapter up this weekend; they're all pre-written, so posting them is mostly a matter of setting time aside for a final read-through. If you're enjoying this story, please leave a kudos, and I'd love to hear your thoughts down in the comments! 
> 
> My thanks to [curlycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for being a terrific beta.


	5. 1967 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You go too fast for me" could mean a great many things.

As Crowley opened the door to his Bentley, he _felt_ Aziraphale. That was the trouble with spending any time in Soho: it didn’t take a great deal of coincidence (or luck, as the case may be) to accidentally brush near enough to the angel to catch a whiff of his presence. In the dusty past, such a chance might put a spring in his step and spur him on to a chance encounter; tonight it was just a quiet comfort, a reassurance.

It didn’t occur to him that this might be more than mere happenstance until he sat, closed the door, and looked up—straight into Aziraphale’s eyes.

A distant, detached part of his mind wondered when it was that the angel had last been the one to initiate a meeting. Did the time he’d come to find Crowley in the alleyway after the encounter with Hastur and Dagon count? Probably only courteous to let it. Before that, though—Rome?

The rest of his mind was at a dead stop, sitting stalled on the freeway and watching traffic swerve around it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked after no better openers presented themselves.

“I needed a word with you.”

He wanted to ask _why_, if Aziraphale needed a word, he came here to surprise him in his car rather than signalling for a meeting at one of the rendezvous points, which the Arrangement provided for. But he did not. It had been nearly fifteen years—_again_—and the thought of another fifteen years after this was dreadful. He could let the argument sleep for now, could he not?

So he contented himself to follow the angel’s lead. “Oh?”

“I work in Soho; I hear things. I hear you’re setting up a… caper… to rob a church. Crowley, it’s too dangerous,” said the angel. Crowley’s heart sank—so they were in for an argument, after all. “Holy water won’t just kill your body. It’ll destroy you completely.”

“You’ve already told me what you think. A hundred and—“ he counted the gaps quickly “—five years ago.” _And twenty-six years ago. And thirteen. _

“And I haven’t changed my mind.”

As persuasive arguments went, it was rather lacking. Crowley waited.

“But I won’t have you risking your life, not even for something dangerous.”

Aziraphale held up a tartan-printed thermos.

“You can call off the robbery,” he said, handing it over. “Don’t go unscrewing the top, now.”

Crowley willed his hands not to shake as he reached out and took it. He recognized the pattern as matching that of the blanket which had decorated his bed during his long recovery, and he blinked rapidly.

“Is this…?”

“Yes. The holiest.”

“After everything you said?”

Aziraphale made no answer and simply looked at him. _No matter what I want_, he’d said, and he’d looked at Crowley just like this back then. Eyes wide and unsure, worry etched into each curve and plane of his perfect face.

“Should I… say thank you?” He tested the waters.

“Best not.”

“Well, can I… can I drop you anywhere? Lift home?”

“No, thank you.”

_Right. _Crowley swallowed past the lump in his throat and focused very intently on the steering wheel.

“Oh, don’t look so disappointed,” Aziraphale said, his voice gentler than the first glimmer of twilight. “Perhaps,” he continued, “perhaps some day we could, I don’t know… have a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.”

Crowley looked up at him, lightning fast, searching for some sign.

“I’ll take you anywhere you like,” he said.

Aziraphale almost—_almost_—smiled, but his lips trembled.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

He might say that, but Crowley felt far too slow, his tongue too thick, his thoughts too sluggish to turn any phrase, any plea. By the time he’d caught up with the present, the angel was gone.

Served him right, he supposed, to be the one left at the end of their meeting this time. Still… he ran his fingers over the top of the thermos. Still, it hadn’t really been an argument, had it? In fact, at the end there—he might have preferred the evening continue, but the door hadn’t been slammed in his face. Indeed, it had pointedly been left open.

As he started the ignition, Crowley thought on it further. Aziraphale’s first and last objections had been about the harm holy water might to do Crowley. Had he finally believed what Crowley said about it not being for _that_, but for insurance?

And if so, what did _this_ mean? Was Aziraphale allowing for the possibility that the two of them might get up to the sorts of things for which they might need that kind of insurance? His mind caught on this train of thought: Last time had ended with Aziraphale asking him to _stop_, and Crowley had; he’d steadfastly avoided being the one to set up their next meeting and he had fully intended to never mention holy water to the angel again. But “you go too fast for me”—especially paired with a gift of _fucking _holy water—was _very _different from “stop.”

What on earth was Aziraphale getting at?

_Well_, he thought, as he sped away in the Bentley, _we can go as slow as you like. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perennial thanks to [curlycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for the beta.


	6. 1970 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over the next three years, the angel and demon met on five occasions. Four of them abided by the outlines of The Arrangement: one or the other of them called for a meeting at one of their rendezvous points, they talked a little, and figured out who was going to go out of their way to perform some miracles and temptations and who was going to stay snug at home and gloat (Aziraphale won three of the four tosses). That concluded, they had parted amicably.
> 
> The fifth meeting had gone very much the same way, but instead it had ended with Aziraphale inviting Crowley to a stroll around the park.

Over the next three years, the angel and demon met on five occasions. Four of them abided by the outlines of The Arrangement: one or the other of them called for a meeting at one of their rendezvous points, they talked a little, and figured out who was going to go out of their way to perform some miracles and temptations and who was going to stay snug at home and gloat (Aziraphale won three of the four tosses). That concluded, they had parted amicably.

The fifth meeting had gone very much the same way, but instead it had ended with Aziraphale inviting Crowley to a stroll around the park.

“Oh, I suppose,” Crowley had said. “Haven’t got much on for the early afternoon, anyway.”

On a celestial timescale, their walk did not last very long, but Crowley had savored it all the same. He tucked all his questions away and enjoyed the present moment. They slid back into long habit, and conversation was easy again.

After they had made several rounds of the park, Aziraphale paused with that look he tended to get when he felt it was time for goodbyes but didn’t want to be rude.

“Suppose I should be off,” Crowley said, to save him the trouble. “Lots of wiles to work.”

“I’m very sure. Well, this was lovely.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said casually. “Take care, angel. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “I should hardly do anything you _would_ do.”

“Shame, that.”

Crowley turned to leave, but at the last moment Aziraphale reached out a hand. He didn’t touch him, but looked at him very quietly for a moment.

“Shall I see you again soon?” the angel asked, solemn and wistful.

Crowley took a breath in, watching Aziraphale and loving him so much he thought he might burst.

“Plan on it,” he said.

* * *

Three weeks later, Crowley (who had lost a full night’s sleep to debating what length of time struck the right balance between “too fast” and “soon”) dropped another rendezvous summons into the letterbox at the bookshop. Unlike most such notes, which named a meeting spot and a time, this not only had a different location than any of their agreed-upon places, it also had a third bit of information: a reservation name.

Two days later, at 12:45 in the afternoon, Crowley walked into the dining room of the Ritz and spent the next ten minutes liberally tipping the staff and explaining his needs of them. He assumed that they’d all been on the receiving end of stranger instructions before, so he allowed himself to be exacting in his requests. (As it happened, he was very correct.) Shortly thereafter, he was seated at his table and all was made ready.

If he leaned to one side, he could see the entryway—and yes, there was Aziraphale, right on time, being greeted by the maître d’ and asking for his reservation (“party name of Fell,” Crowley could almost hear him say). Then the angel was being walked back to his seat. No menu was placed in front of him, but a server quickly came along with a glass of a beautiful syrah.

It was at this point that the angel looked up in confusion and locked eyes with Crowley, who was seated directly facing him—from a table away.

Crowley raised his own glass in a toast, unable to keep a smile from his lips. Aziraphale mimicked the gesture, smile and all—though his looked rather skeptical. They each took a sip, and Aziraphale nodded approvingly.

After a few moments, the angel leaned forward in his chair and opened his mouth like he was going to say something. With a show of tremendous indifference, Crowley made a production of perusing the menu, bending his head down and really inspecting each item.

He’d already ordered the hors d’oeuvres, not wanting the game to get stale with too much downtime. This time when the waiter came over, he requested a few interesting-looking sides. Food was not precisely his forté; fortunately, Aziraphale sort of _was_. He’d spent long enough listening to the angel wax rhapsodic about various dishes to have, he figured, decent odds at ordering a meal to his liking.

(Not that even a total stranger would have bad odds—it seemed that Aziraphale liked very much and disliked very little. Oh, sure, he gravitated to the finer things, but Crowley had seen him dig into a fish fry from the local pub with the same appreciation as a Michelin-starred tasting menu. He loved each for what it was, which Crowley thought was rather the right way to go about things.

Still, he wanted this to be as enjoyable for the angel as possible.)

Aziraphale was playing along patiently; he didn’t even try again to mouth anything at Crowley, although that might have to do more with his exceptionally fussy manners than with any real desire to go along with Crowley’s plan. Upon observation, he seemed largely amused by the whole arrangement, although he shot the demon a few long-suffering looks.

When the first cold dish arrived, Aziraphale gave him yet another pointed look: it was served only to the angel’s table. Crowley smiled, raised his glass in another salute, and settled in to enjoy himself. The angel gave him a pensive look, then beckoned over the waiter. This wasn’t part of the plan, and the waiter seemed alarmed as they looked between Aziraphale and Crowley. The demon shrugged and indicated for them to proceed.

Whatever Aziraphale said to them caused them to look up at Crowley again as if for permission. He spread his hands expansively, and the waiter nodded. Aziraphale continued talking to them, his manner lovely and engaging, and his voice just low enough that Crowley couldn’t make out any words.

Without any food to slow him down, Crowley moved through his wine quickly. To his surprise, rather than bringing the demon another glass of the syrah, the waiter presented a bottle to Aziraphale for inspection. He looked it over, smiled, and nodded, at which point the waiter (looking somewhat bemused) moved over to Crowley’s table.

“Château Cheval Blanc Grand Cru, 1941, for you, sir,” they said, holding the bottle out again. Crowley fought to keep his face neutral as he looked it over and nodded with what he _hoped _was appropriate gravitas and not a vapid, lovesick expression. He daren’t look up at the angel now, or he’d never do justice to the ritual of smelling the wine and adjudicating the first sip.

It was phenomenal—of course it was. But Aziraphale could have picked any good wine. He picked _this _wine, from nineteen-bloody-forty-one, with a name like _white horse_, and Crowley wondered how long the angel had been planning to casually drop this vintage. His stomach twisted as his mind caught on the thought of Aziraphale having been _ready_ for this, having clearly considered it. It couldn’t be coincidence. The affirmation settled snugly around him like a lover’s embrace.

He finally looked up at the angel and lost any semblance of composure he may have had at the unaffected pleasure—and just a touch of impish self-satisfaction—with which Aziraphale was regarding him. Crowley cleared his throat and blinked rapidly, and found he had to look away again.

It was a _very _good wine.

Small plates came out to the table in waves, sometimes accompanied by new drinks; Aziraphale sampled and evidently enjoyed everything. He regarded each dish appraisingly as it was laid before him, delicately broke into it, and unselfconsciously gave himself over to appreciating it. Crowley watched his face for every reaction and was not disappointed.

Occasionally, Aziraphale would lock eyes with him, either mid-bite or between dishes. Each time, the angel would give him a slow, gentle smile, and Crowley’s heart would thud even louder in his throat.

At one point the angel let out a sound, a little hum of appreciation; Crowley couldn’t hear it properly but he could _see _it. All the art in all the museums in the world couldn’t be half so moving. It gave him cause to be grateful for the fact that he frequently forwent true verisimilitude when it came to his human body—it was one thing to thoroughly enjoy the spectacle of one’s friend eating an extravagant meal, and quite another to do it with the sort of physical reaction that Crowley imagined he’d have if he possessed the proper equipment.

Watching Aziraphale enjoy himself was a treat; there was no denying it. That was not, however, the primary reason he had arranged for this.

It wasn’t a power play. It wasn’t even meant to be a sort of joke, although Crowley admitted that he _was _amused by the whole thing. Simply, though, it was this: he didn’t want to put Aziraphale in the position of needing to tell him _stop _again; not even _slow down_.

There had never been rulebooks for the sort of friendship they had (there had been no need, as the only rule was “don’t”) but Crowley expected that over the last hundred years, they’d found their way into an even more precarious situation. If he was reading the angel’s meaning correctly, with the gift of the holy water and everything that had gone along with it, then they were opening a new chapter and he would be well and _truly _damned if he was going to fuck it up. If he was wrong about the whole thing, well, at least they’d have gotten this lovely meal out of it.

Far, _far _better to have Aziraphale tell him to speed it up than to find out he’d overstepped.

For all his elegant manners, Aziraphale had gotten a tiny dab of clotted cream on the side of his lip. Crowley made a descriptive gesture and bit back a smile when the angel blushed prettily.

Eventually, they were done. Crowley was feeling pleasantly buzzed and not a little giddy, and Aziraphale seemed preeminently satisfied—he didn’t even do more than purse his lips when Crowley gestured for him to make his way out of the dining room alone.

* * *

Two days after their Ritz excursion, Crowley paid to have a bouquet of forget-me-nots delivered to the bookshop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this the same day as Chapter 5 because 1967 directly overlapped show canon. 
> 
> Tremendous thanks to [curlycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for being a terrific beta. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! This fic is entirely written so I'll be posting the remaining chapters regularly. In the meantime, I'm always delighted to hear what you're thinking--please feel free to leave a comment!


	7. 1974 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley pays Aziraphale a visit.

The past four years had been a blur. Crowley couldn’t remember a time in history that had felt so engaging—but then, he’d worked fairly hard to keep human history from affecting him personally. This, though, this...was it a courtship? He privately felt that there wasn’t an adequate word for it. That made sense; he was reasonably certain that their situation was utterly unique in the whole of Creation. Whatever one might call it, it was enticing, electrifying.

It seemed a silly thing, to be so thrilled by four years of rendezvouses, of casual meetings, of the occasional token of regard by post. In many ways, their previous acquaintance had involved far more direct contact; they hadn’t gotten properly drunk together in the past four years, for example, despite countless previous occurrences. But a crucial element had been missing all those times before. Back then, they had been putting on a show, both for their respective Head Offices and for each other (perhaps even for themselves). Now the immediate deception had been dropped. They played far more cautiously in regards to the nature and manner of their meetings, but it seemed to Crowley that all the careful veils of privacy had dropped from between them.

It was exhilarating, intoxicating, just to walk through the park with Aziraphale, knowing that he wanted this whatever-it-was just as much as Crowley did—there could be no doubting it now. Neither of them had made much in the way of declarations, but each time Crowley took a step further out on this branch, he found the angel right beside him.

Their odd dinner at the Ritz had been repeated at half a dozen other restaurants in the first year. Crowley ordered food for Aziraphale, and Aziraphale sent him drinks. Mostly they sat across from each other as they had that first time, although the last time it was back-to-back. Crowley had enjoyed being able to talk to Aziraphale then, and was distinctly gratified when, at the end, the angel had suggested that perhaps it would be more inconspicuous for the two of them to simply sit together. Then there would be no chattering at the bread basket, at least.

Over the lifetime of the Earth, they’d dined together a score of times or more, but somehow Crowley couldn’t help but think of the little cafe in Covent Garden where they’d gone for tea shortly after that occasion as their _real_ first time. The first time when he didn’t have to pretend to be disinterested, didn’t have to hide how utterly delightful he found the angel.

Four years ago, he had been concerned about pacing, about what might be too fast. In the intervening time, he’d somehow managed to lose sight of that worry entirely. That had been a matter of velocity towards some fixed destination that he couldn’t even have named if he’d tried to; Crowley now found that the very act of traveling down this path with Aziraphale was, itself, the fulfilment of his desires.

It was, in many ways, a subtle thing. There had been no hand-holding, no physical contact beyond the occasional handshake or the odd touch every now and again of Aziraphale’s hand on his wrist or shoulder as the angel was telling a story. Neither had ventured to describe the outline of the thing in words. But deep in the core of himself, the part that was damn near eternal and faintly recalled breathing life into stars and nebulae, Crowley knew that everything had changed.

For one thing, the angel’s looks of longing were all but palpable. On more than one occasion, Crowley had had to physically press his own lips together to keep himself from telling Aziraphale that if the angel was going to keep looking so blessed forlorn about saying goodbye, he was just going to do them both a favor and not leave—and then where would they be?

He did _not_ say that, so they kept saying goodbye but also they kept meeting up again, and the angel kept _looking _at him when he thought Crowley was distracted; it was an altogether unfamiliar sensation for Crowley to be looked at like that, like he was pleasing, like he was good to be near, like Aziraphale might even like to be nearer still. It made his ears and eyes burn and his fingers ache to reach out and grab Aziraphale, hold him close, and drown in his warmth.

* * *

He now stood outside the bookshop, preparing to enter it for only the second time since he’d fled in the wake of Gabriel’s arrival, after Aziraphale had nursed him back to health. That incident had started up his quest for holy water (he tried not to think about how that related that to the turning point in their relationship and therefore that he indirectly had Duke Hastur to thank for the way things were going) as insurance. He’d finally worked out how to get the angelic equivalent for Aziraphale, and it seemed the sort of thing that was best handled as securely as possible.

He knocked. After a moment, he knocked again.

“I beg your pardon,” Aziraphale’s voice came through the door even as Crowley heard him turning the lock, “but as you can see from the—oh, hello Crowley.”

“Hello, angel.”

“I suppose you’d like to come in?” Aziraphale sounded anxious. It made sense; this was out of the ordinary now. Still, the angel’s face was open and welcoming.

“Yeah,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale stood aside so he could enter.

“Something to drink?” Aziraphale offered, wringing his hands and looking like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“Nah, thanks, maybe in a bit. I came over to—well, let’s, do you mind if we head into the back? Whole point was some privacy.”

The angel’s eyes widened and Crowley winced. “Nothing, erm, untoward,” he added.

Without another word, Aziraphale showed him back to the parlour of his living quarters. The angel sat down on an overstuffed sofa and looked at him expectantly.

Crowley suddenly found that, caught in that gaze, he didn’t know what to do with his eyes or hands. He settled for shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“See, the thing is—are we safe here, d’you think, from anyone prying?”

“Safe as we can be, I expect. At the very least, any surprise visits I’ve had always start in the shop, so there would be a little time…”

As he spoke, Aziraphale grew visibly more anxious, and his expression struck at Crowley like a blow. This was the whole damnable problem of it all: hard enough to be two beings trying to figure out a relationship, but it nearly destroyed Crowley to think of the angel needing to watch his back, being afraid of his own kind. On the darkest nights, it was nearly enough to make Crowley give the whole thing up; at least then Aziraphale could be safe. But then his own words to Aziraphale—_that’s not your choice to make_—would come drifting back to him, and he’d resign himself to letting the angel make his own choices, even if it meant danger.

“Right,” he said. “Okay. So. You, erm, remember why I wanted holy water so badly?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Insurance,” Crowley said. “In case my lot caught whiff of, ah, anything. Could buy us—” he floundered, but there was Aziraphale watching him patiently, not being at all put off by the demon’s use of the inclusive pronoun “—time to get out. Away from any trouble.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said.

“But that’s really only half the problem, right? Because there’s that side and… the other.” He gestured vaguely upwards. Aziraphale nodded again. “But I’ve come upon a solution, I think.”

Crowley produced a small black cylinder, unremarkable in every respect, and held it out with a flourish.

Aziraphale looked at it. “This is…?”

“Aerosolized ashes of wormwood burnt by hellfire,” Crowley said smugly. “In a spray canister.”

The angel’s eyes grew wide, and he looked at it with interest and not a little trepidation.

“And it—”

“Figured you weren’t really the type for utter destruction,” interrupted Crowley. “It’ll make an angel plenty uncomfortable. At worst it might discorporate someone, but probably not. Mostly it’ll just make their day thoroughly unpleasant and give you an opportunity to get scarce.”

“Oh! How ingenious.”

“I thought so.”

“It’s really very clever of you, my dear.”

“Make sure the wind isn’t in your face when you use it.”

“Rather.”

Crowley extended the can, and Aziraphale took it from his outstretched hand.

“I shall keep it somewhere safe,” he said.

“Don’t,” Crowley said. “Keep it somewhere _close_. It doesn’t do you any good in a display case here.”

Aziraphale frowned at the can a moment, then slipped it into an inner pocket of his coat.

“And that got me thinking,” Crowley continued, fishing in his own pocket for another device, “that some backup would probably be called for in such a situation, so here’s this.”

He held out a small paging device—a little box of concealed circuitry with no screen and two buttons—which Aziraphale took with as much caution as the aerosol can.

“It’s a beeper,” Crowley explained. “Two-way. Something happens, you need to use that spray, you should use this too. If you press this button—“ he pointed it out “—I’ll come find you.”

“It… beeps?”

“Yeah—well, specifically it makes _this _beep,” Crowley said, holding up his own device.

“I have a telephone,” Aziraphale said a little defensively.

“You’ve got a corded phone in the shop,” the demon corrected.

Aziraphale didn’t argue the point further. “And how would that help? That is, how would you find me?”

Crowley shrugged. “Remember when you came and found me? After, y’know, the whole…”

Aziraphale nodded.

“I reckon we can probably do that, if we really put our minds to it. You said, once, that you could sort of notice? When I was near?” Hell, he hadn’t meant to say that bit, but Aziraphale only nodded. “So if you need to push that button, just… think real receptive thoughts.”

Aziraphale thought it over for a moment, then switched topics. “What’s the other button do?”

“If this thing starts making noise, that’ll make it stop.”

“If it’s making noise, that would mean… you used yours?”

“Erm, yes.”

“And I assume you’d use it only under similar circumstances?”

“Yeah.”

Aziraphale looked thoughtful and stayed quiet. As he waited, Crowley focused on not _looking _nervous. The spray can had been a pretty sensible offering; Aziraphale certainly knew the dangers of their situation, and offering him some sort of protection might make the angel uncomfortable, but Crowley had been reasonably confident that the angel was practical enough to see the need for such precautions. The pager, however… despite how Crowley had couched it as another pragmatic consideration, it felt starkly personal. _I want to know when you’re in danger so I can help_, it said. _If you’re going to run away, I’ll be right there with you._

It was as close as they’d come in nearly seven years to speaking plainly about their attachment. Crowley couldn’t help but squirm a little in discomfort—what if it was too much?

But at last Aziraphale looked up, his expression clear, and gave him a gentle smile. Crowley let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding and smiled back, hoping it looked less nervous than he felt.

“That’s very… thoughtful of you,” Aziraphale said, his voice rich with unspoken words.

Crowley swallowed with difficulty and nodded.

The angel tucked the pager into another pocket and stood.

“Drink?” he offered.

“Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was writing this, I had the realization that a nontrivial portion of the audience for this fic likely has never had practical experience with pagers? Which was a wild ride???
> 
> Thanks as ever to [curleycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for being a phenomenal beta and a great co-conspirator.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'd be delighted to hear what you've been thinking as you read, if you'd care to leave a comment. ♥


	8. 2008 AD, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking place before the canon events of 2008.

Years passed and they settled into—not a routine, but a habit. As it continued, Crowley got acclimatized to the feeling of being able to _expect_ to see Aziraphale with real regularity, sometimes even a score of times within a year. They kept mainly to public places, although if everything went just right, they might retire to Aziraphale’s shop for a nightcap. Crowley never invited the angel back to his own flat.

Once, Crowley lost their coin toss and had gone to Berlin for a joint miracle/temptation only to find Aziraphale walking into a little German pub to have dinner with him one night while he was there. The angel had explained that it had, after all, been some time since he’d had proper German cuisine, and anyway it was a good time of year for a holiday.

It had been harder, there, to pull back at the end of the night. To return to his very human hotel room with no angel.

The next time they met, they were in London once again—just a quick rendezvous at St. James’s park. Aziraphale brought a bag of dried peas, which he was tossing out to the ducks and geese while looking thoroughly unhappy.

“You’re always so patient,” he said abruptly, after nearly half an hour of polite but half-hearted conversation.

“Eh?”

“I’m...I know that...I mean to say, I know this isn’t...what you might like.”

Crowley’s mind froze.

“Feeding ducks?” he clarified. “Nah, they’re alright.”

“Oh, _please_,” Aziraphale said. “I meant how we meet. All of the Arrangement. I know you’d rather—”

Crowley interrupted him as quickly as he could, once he understood. “No, no, it’s not that—not at all,” he said hastily.

Aziraphale, looking skeptical, threw the last handful of peas and tucked the bag away in a pocket. He didn’t turn to look at Crowley; both beings sat facing the water. Scant protection, if they were seen, but it was what they had—what they could live with.

“How do I explain this?” Crowley asked, mostly to keep the silence from convincing Aziraphale that he had, in fact, been right. “If we wanted to meet once a year and drink across the bar from each other and that was it, that’d be brilliant. If it was what we both wanted.”

Aziraphale’s sad, confused expression didn’t change, so Crowley continued: “Rather than what we thought we could get away with.”

“Oh—_oh.”_

Feeling more than a little uncomfortable, Crowley finished his point. “I haven’t got an agenda, angel. I just want whatever happens to be up to us.”

“I hadn’t…hadn’t thought of it like that,” Aziraphale said. He looked more contemplative, now. “How very human of you.”

_Huh. _

“Suppose so.”

The discussion turned Crowley’s own thoughts towards gloom and doom. They tried a little longer to find something to enjoy, but eventually Crowley made an excuse to leave. Perhaps in a month or two, enough time would have passed that they could both slip back into their willful self-delusion and pretend that it wasn’t all so horribly fucked.

* * *

Three weeks later, Hastur’s voice broke through the middle of Queen’s _Don’t Try So Hard_, which _ought _to have been Vivaldi, to give him orders.

“Crowley,” his loathsome voice dribbled through the speakers, and Crowley flinched so hard he nearly drove into a wall.

“Hastur.”

“Feeling well?” There was a gleeful malice in the question, an awful reminder, and Crowley swerved again. He pulled to an abrupt stop on the shoulder of the road.

“Never better,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Good, good. That will make it more fun if you fuck this next one up.”

Crowley stayed silent.

“Come to the Chesham cemetery tomorrow night.”

“What’s on?”

“Oh, I’d hate to spoil the surprise,” Hastur said—and then his voice was gone.

Crowley turned off the radio for good measure and sat in silence until he stopped trembling.

One hand went to his belt and felt for the beeper there. He wasn’t in any real danger, at least not right now, but the sense of foreboding he’d felt from the instant he heard Hastur’s voice was making that hard to believe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to tumblr/AO3 user curlycrowley for the beta work! 
> 
> Next chapter will be posted tomorrow, since the 2008 pieces are kind of companions. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear what you think below in the comments.


	9. 2008 AD, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only eleven years left until the end of the world. Crowley had taken _naps_ longer than the rest of human history.

Eleven years. No—eleven years less a fortnight. He had to keep track. The days and weeks mattered, now, when they never had before. That’s how much longer the world had. Hell, he’d taken _naps _longer than the rest of human history. Just eleven years left, and he’d wasted most of the last two weeks drinking and moping around.

Crowley honestly didn’t know if he believed the scheme he’d proposed to Aziraphale. This was the son of Satan they were dealing with; was it really going to matter what sort of influence they had on him? Had he proposed it because he thought it could work, or because some sort of plot or intrigue stood the best chance of keeping the angel—and himself—from despair?

If they had any sense, they’d start running now. Really, he should have listened to his instincts, grabbed the angel, and started running the moment he got the summons from Hastur for the meeting in the churchyard. There was so much _space _between things, out in the far reaches of the ever-expanding universe. They could hole up on some little asteroid, or maybe one of those exotic planets with an atmosphere made up of the gases of things that were solid on Earth. Their corporations wouldn’t hold up in those sorts of conditions, but they didn’t really need those anyway. Maybe before the left they could take a day and just, you know, sample the sorts of things the bodies they’d have to leave behind were good for.

More likely, they’d try something out and he’d dissolve into a puddle of mush at the mere sensation. It was a nicer way to go than most of the alternatives, admittedly…

Crowley snorted as he tried to imagine himself sauntering into Aziraphale’s bookshop and propositioning him like that. “_That body’s six thousand years old. You’re not going to let it discorporate a virgin, are you?” _

But he couldn’t do that. Not with the way he’d left things.

He hadn’t seen the angel since the night they’d agreed on the plan. They’d shaken on it, and Aziraphale had smiled—really smiled—for the first time all day, and then Crowley’s _stupid, idiot mouth_ had run away with him and made that fucking joke. “Not that bad once you get used to it”—what sort of imbecile made _that fucking joke _to Aziraphale, of all beings?

The smile had vanished from the angel’s perfect face like a torch guttering out in a cave—not just gone, but gone in such a way as made the darkness worse, somehow, because it had previously been so bright. Crowley’s heart had quailed and cringed at the naked fear on his friend’s face. And _he _had put it there.

Aziraphale had gone cold then. They’d dragged out a few more agonizing minutes of pretending everything hasn’t just collapsed into rubble between them and then Crowley had given up and meekly mentioned that it was about time he be off. The angel hadn’t argued the point, but had walked him woodenly to the door at the front of the shop.

Crowley had stood at the threshold a moment, desperately casting about for the right thing to say, to fix what he’d done. Nothing materialized, and instead he simply stood there, taking up too much space and trying not to notice the awful wretchedness that settled into every line of Aziraphale’s face and pressed at his shoulders.

* * *

He invited Aziraphale to lunch at the Criterion. It wasn’t a bribe, wasn’t even an apology; there were just so few meals left in time, so oughtn’t the angel have the very best?

They met there, for a mercy. Over the last couple of decades, Crowley had gotten in the habit of offering Aziraphale a lift whenever possible, but he needed to not have a gas pedal under his foot for this conversation.

Aziraphale was waiting at the entry when Crowley arrived, and they navigated a greeting like strangers, walked beside each other like strangers, before sitting down at their table. They were so close; if Crowley were to adjust his seat just like so, their knees would be brushing. He wouldn’t even need to stretch to cover the angel’s hand with his own. But if ever there had been a time for such a step, it was not now.

Thick, cloying silence settled between them, somehow unbroken even when Aziraphale ordered his food. It wasn’t until they both had a drink in hand that Aziraphale spoke to him, and the silence retreated grudgingly.

“It’s still a good plan,” the angel said.

“It’s _a_ plan, at least.”

“I’ll still do it.”

Crowley hadn’t bothered to get an expectation going one way or another about whether Aziraphale would go along with it. Still, it was nice to hear.

“Oh, well that’s...that’s good, I suppose. Not much chance otherwise,” he said, and he took a drink.

“But Crowley, I think—I wonder if you aren’t going to be under closer supervision, now, what with the child and all.”

Crowley held his breath and waited.

“Do you suppose it’s—that is, that we…” Aziraphale trailed off, looking miserable.

Much as he might like to, Crowley daren’t try to help him. What if he guessed wrong about the angel’s intent? What if he put too much distance between them; what if he tried to pull too close? He could only look helplessly at the angel, drinking in the sight of him—so breathtakingly exquisite, even in such a sorry state. So familiar and so dear.

Aziraphale rallied (he was always so brave, in his quiet, gentle way, and Crowley loved him for it) and spoke again. "That is, do you suppose it'd be best if we, well, laid low? To give this plan its best chance of succeeding?"

Crowley's breath hissed out. "You mean if we stayed apart."

A nod from the angel.

His tongue felt leaden. "Yeah, I mean, it would certainly be less conspicuous."

Aziraphale nodded again, chin out like he was trying to put on a good show of being resolved, being unbothered.

"But," Crowley went on, his whole body cold with a creeping dread, "if the plan doesn't work...That'd mean I spent the last eleven years of the world avoiding you for nothing."

In an instant, the angel's face crumpled. All his brave mask, the stiff upper lip, the air of resolve, disintegrated. His bright eyes were shining with unshed tears, and his whole face was desperately full of need and grief. "How can you say that," he asked, his voice barely audible.

"What else could I say, now?" Crowley asked, keeping his voice low but leaning forward, feeling the world start to tilt off its axis as the possibility of failure, of an existence in which Aziraphale Fell or one or the other of them was exiled into nonbeing or Heaven won and turned his sweet angel cruel and hard, sank into his bones and threatened to break them apart. "How could I say anything but the truth?"

Aziraphale flinched from his words. "It wouldn't be for nothing," he said.

"The world would be gone, and we—no matter what—at the end, we'll both—" Crowley felt his thoughts moving too quickly, his breath starting to come in choking, stuttering gasps. It was too terrible, there was too much at stake and there wasn't a thing he could do about any of it. Couldn't see through the end of Armageddon to what waited beyond, couldn't bring up one shred of reassurance for the angel, couldn't even find within himself whether he actually believed their plan could work. He was unmoored, the world spinning around him and him spinning around these questions, this uncertainty; the room around him blurred as he turned away from the table, put his head between his legs, and panted.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale said, and then he could see the angel's shoes as he came to stand near him, could feel hands gripping his shoulders. Noises from the room around them roared back into his perception all at once, and a server came over in a fright.

"I'm okay," he wheezed. He braced a hand over his heart as he sat upright and the world settled back down around him. "I just...need a moment."

He sat, wrestling for control of his breathing, and allowed Aziraphale to deal with the baffled server and with ordering new drinks—apparently he'd knocked his over. Glass and the last drops of his wine had sprayed over the tablecloth.

By the time he'd reoriented himself, their table had been reset, a new glass brought out, and Aziraphale's food served. He took a steadying gulp of wine and forced himself to meet the angel's eyes.

"I understand," Aziraphale said. Reading the confusion on Crowley's face, he continued: "The panic. It's awful, isn't it?"

Crowley nodded dumbly.

"My poor dear, I'm so sorry." His tone was gentle. There was no trace of mockery, only warmth and loving acceptance.

He took a few bites, allowing Crowley time to settle and adjust.

“I think I’ve felt that, more or less, for the last six millennia, ever since that dratted sword.” He spoke lightly, casually, for the first time since before Crowley had called him so they could discuss the Antichrist. The offhand tone gave no inclination that he considered himself superior or harder-done-by for this long suffering; he was merely offering solidarity and the comfort of a shared burden. He took a sip of wine.

Crowley took in a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t know how it could possibly end well. What would _well _even look like?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know either. Never figured that out.”

Crowley wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he took a drink instead of saying anything, and the silence crept back in, rough an uncomfortable.

“I wish I hadn’t made that joke,” he blurted out all at once, when the silence had grown and grown to the point he was afraid they’d never be able to break it again if he didn’t say something _now_.

He’d never apologized to the angel before. It was one of the plus sides of being a demon of which he took full advantage. What was the point of being unilaterally damned for eternity if one was just going to go around apologizing to people? Wasn’t he _meant _to do bad now?

But now was not the time to be fussy about professional perks and obligations. Now was the time to set things right, if ever he could.

Aziraphale blinked at him slowly. “Joke?” he repeated, his voice brittle.

“The other night. I didn’t mean to—to hit on a sore subject like that. I don’t blame you, I understand why you’re, why you’d want to not, you know…” he gestured vaguely. “Why you want to stay in Heaven’s good graces.”

The angel made a face that Crowley had first seen in Mesopotamia around the time of the Flood: the uncomfortable, circumspect look of someone trying desperately not to directly question their superiors.

“I...appreciate that,” Aziraphale said. “It is hopefully no surprise to you that I have...conflicting feelings about all of that.”

_Feelings. _

Aziraphale went on: “I must confess, I don’t see the point of ending the Earth and all the humans. I’m fond of them. I disagree on principle with the idea of Armageddon. There needn’t _be _a war. But—“ he took a deep breath and looked up from his inspection of his dessert fork where it lay on the table “—I imagine that I would be more sanguine about the whole thing if it was just about _them_.”

Aziraphale’s expression was open and guileless and Crowley had no _fucking _idea what he was meant to say in response.

“If it weren’t for the implications for—us?” he clarified.

The angel nodded.

“For you and me,” Crowley said.

Another nod.

“Because we, ah, are…” Crowley ventured, but lost his nerve.

“Because you matter tremendously to me, my dear.”

Relief crashed through Crowely like a cresting wave and it was all he could do to tightly grip his hands into fists rather than risk splintering the table, to stay seated rather than throw himself at the angel, to look at him rather than run away and hide from the light of _this_.

How could it be that now, with what felt like no time at all left, they were getting around to this? It was at once awful and delightful to hear it after all these years, knowing that it was only because everything would be ripped away from them so soon. _Well, _he thought with grim irony, _no time like the present. _

“I love you,” Crowley said, much to his own surprise. He didn’t think he’d actually meant to say it; he’d been hazily thinking of something like “thank you” or “I feel the same way.” But it was out there now. And there was Aziraphale, his cupid’s bow lips parted in what could be a sigh or a gasp, Crowley wasn’t sure and was half-afraid to find out.

“Oh,” was all the angel said, but then he smiled and Crowley’s heart soared. That smile was like a beacon, like the first ray of the sun over the mountains, like the light of the first star he’d ever set to dance in the sky, and he felt an answering smile start to form on his own lips.

“I love you,” he repeated, because it was true and because it felt good to say it, even if the world _was _going to end and no matter _what _might happen to the two of them.

“My dear Crowley, I love you,” Aziraphale said, and the words rang like a golden bell in Crowley’s heart. He was distantly surprised to be in no pain, because he’d never heard anything so like a benediction in his existence.

“Well,” he said. “That’s...good.”

“I’ve rather thought so.”

“And, ah, what does it...mean?”

Aziraphale gave him a patient smile. “Well, it means I prefer your happiness and wellbeing to nearly anything else. That I hold you in very high regard, appalling driving habits notwithstanding; that—”

“I know what _love _means, angel,” Crowley said with a sneer he didn’t really feel. “But what does it mean for…” he splayed his fingers in an all-encompassing gesture “...the whole, y’know. _Thing_.”

Aziraphale looked at him with fond exasperation. “I’ve spent six thousand years trying to puzzle that out, and you think we’re going to solve it this afternoon?”

“‘Course we can. Hang on, you’ve spent what?”

Aziraphale fixed him with a knowing look, one eyebrow raised. “You heard me,” he said. He might have looked stern, were it not for the undercurrent of amusement in his rich voice.

“And how is this just coming up now?”

“It didn’t seem wise,” Aziraphale said, all traces of humor gone. “I did nearly tell you, you know, during that time you were...my guest.”

“_Wise?” _Crowley repeated at volume. “When does wisdom come into it, you dove-brained—hang on, this really isn’t the place for this conversation.”

He drained his glass and pulled out his wallet, tossing down enough cash to cover the bill and a hefty tip.

Once they were outside, Aziraphale picked the conversation back up. “Based on what you told me then, you nearly got discorporated simply because you didn’t k—” the angel looked at a passing family and dropped his voice to a vicious whisper “—kill a _child_. How could I put you in even greater danger? And then you’d gone and I thought that perhaps I had...misapprehended.”

“Okay, fair,” Crowley said, “but after that. Been a long time since eighteen thirty-seven.”

He realized, with an uncomfortable sort of weight on his conscience (why did he still have one of _those_?), that it was unfair to demand answers of Aziraphale like this. They had both kept quiet about the whole thing, after all. Still…a part of him couldn’t help but relish getting confirmation of how long this had been on the angel’s mind. He’d spent so much of Earth’s history assuming this could happen only as a fantasy—to hear proof that it was real was a luxurious comfort.

“I couldn’t see how to work it out,” Aziraphale said.

“Who cares about working it—?”

“I do!” Aziraphale exclaimed. He stopped walking, and Crowley turned to face him. “I care very much because the way I see it, this—and I mean the whole deal, not _us_—can only be bad or _worse_. Either hell wins and all the goodness and love is gone from everywhere, or—or it doesn’t and then, then I would never—you wouldn’t—” he cut off with a sob, and Crowley was alarmed to see tears suddenly running down his cheeks.

_Worse_. Worse, to Aziraphale, was Heaven winning. Because if Heaven won, Crowley would be lost to him forever—exiled or gone.

He spoke slowly, an awful heaviness pulling at his words as that realization—that depth, that devotion, and the utter hopelessness of it all—dawned on him. “Either side winning is bad,” he said aloud.

Aziraphale made no answer, but only cried harder, hiding his mouth with his hands.

The demon waited a moment, until the shaking in Aziraphale’s shoulders gentled. “What if we were on...our own side?”

“Crowley, that’s not an option,” Aziraphale said, his voice nearly a wail. “You can’t just carry around a vial of holy water and pretend that means you’re some kind of—of free agent!”

“I’m not—it’s not like—How did you make it sound so stupid?”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s like I told you,” Crowley said. “It’s insurance. Buys us time to get away.”

“And then what?” Aziraphale demanded.

“And then…we figure it out as we go, I suppose.”

“But there _is _no figuring it out as we go!” Were it not for the wild anguish in his voice, Aziraphale would have sounded well and truly angry. “There is no_ staying one step ahead of them_. This is…inevitability. This is the Almighty and the one who hated Her enough to split reality!”

“But...I love you,” Crowley said, all other arguments lost to him. Surely that could be—_had to_ be—enough?

Aziraphale drew in a shuddering breath. “That’s—I can’t—Crowley, do you remember what...what it feels like?”

A cold fist wrapped around Crowley’s heart. “What what feels like?” he asked.

“Her love,” Aziraphale answered.

Crowley flinched at the mere mention of it.

“No.” All he’d ever been able to feel, thinking of _that_, was _separation_. A keen loss, a gaping chasm that should have been solid land. Like missing your step on a staircase, only there was no floor, forever.

Aziraphale spoke very quietly. “I don’t know who I would be, without that. I don’t know if I...would be able to love you.”

“What?” Crowley knew he sounded shrill, possibly even peevish, and didn’t much mind. “Oh, you think that demons can’t feel—”

“No!” Aziraphale cried, interrupting him. He looked abjectly pitiful. “No, not that. Never that. Crowley, you’re the most…” he took a deep breath. “The most astounding being. Of _course _I know you’re capable of love, the profoundest love. You’re amazing.”

He continued: “I didn’t mean it as a categorical question. It’s about _me, _about who _I _would be if I didn’t have that. I don’t think I’d be...strong enough.” He sighed. “I’ve seen other demons. I could be like them, so easily. I know it.”

Crowley gaped at him. “Aziraphale, what are you saying? That’s not right at all, that’s not _you_, that’s—” but Aziraphale interrupted him again.

“So that’s one option. I Fall, and maybe I can’t love you.”

“No, that’s not what would happen, that’s—” Crowley felt a sea of terror rise up around him, threatening to drown him.

Aziraphale kept speaking, his voice irresistible, implacable. “Second option: Hell wins. Would you want to live in that world?”

“Of course I don’t, but there must be—”

He was relentless. “Or Hell loses. _I _couldn’t live in—”

—But now it was Crowley interrupting. “Shut up, shut _up_,” he cried, breath coming too quick.

The angel finally went quiet, but then that silence swept over them again and suddenly Crowley couldn’t catch his breath—he didn’t even _need _to breathe, what was going on—and oh, fuck, everything was spinning again and the edges of his vision were going white. He doubled over, desperate for air, choking on a sob that welled up from the very center of his being.

He heard the angel’s voice but couldn’t make out his words, then once again he felt Aziraphale holding his shoulders, supporting him. Crowley allowed himself to be pulled upright, and slowly the world righted itself. Aziraphale was so very near him, his lips nearly touching Crowley’s ear, whispering encouraging nonsense into his ear. _You’re safe, it’s okay, I’ve got you_, he was saying, and his voice pulled Crowley back from the brink.

Aziraphale guided him to a low wall where they sat in quiet for some time, but it was not the oppressive silence of words unspoken. The angel’s arm was around him, and Crowley felt much the same as he had on the perimeter of Eden, sheltered from the rain by his wings.

“You don’t _know_,” he said when his breathing had settled. “You don’t _know _if those are the only three options. You don’t _know _you’d...Fall.”

Aziraphale didn’t say anything for a long, long time. His hand was rubbing Crowley’s back in gentle circles.

“This, exactly this, is why I didn’t ever bring it up,” he said eventually. “Why I...was reluctant. Not for lack of love, my dear, never that. But I—it paralyzes me. I can’t think, can’t do anything. I just...have to set it aside. Or else I’d give up on hope entirely.”

Yes, Crowley understood that.

Aziraphale continued, his voice gentle and warm: “But you see my dear, my wonderful dear, your plan could change everything. No matter how I thought it through, I never saw a way out. And you did, my knight. _You _thought of something, and so quickly. You really are a marvel.”

That praise coursed through Crowley’s very being. Filled every corner of him with light and reassurance. He lifted his head.

“But if—But what if it doesn’t…”

Aziraphale smiled at him, with a tenderness that broke Crowley’s heart. “Then we’ll have tried,” he said simply. “And we’ll have _known_.”

Crowley nodded. It was, he reflected, like when he had first really confronted his own love: just living with the truth of it was a sort of pleasure, no matter how it might end.

“I love you, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“No, no, you’re right.” Crowley sniffed and set his jaw. “You’ve always kept us safe. And someone’s—someone’s got to talk sense.”

Aziraphale leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to Crowley’s cheek. There was nothing sexual about it, no spark or thrill of desire. It was only warm and comforting and utterly good.

“We can do this,” the angel said, and Crowley believed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there it is! We've got two chapters left in this story—I expect that they'll both be posted by about this time next week, as they're already written. 
> 
> My eternal thanks to [curlycrowley](https://curlycrowley.tumblr.com/) (also on here [under the same name](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley)). 
> 
> Thank you for reading! This chapter was a lot for me—I'd love to hear what you thought of it. 
> 
> Cheers, and we'll see you soon for chapters 10 and 11! ♥


	10. 2019 AD, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armageddon is upon us!

As far as Crowley knew, the Earth had never existed without Aziraphale as part of the package. Now it did, although it wouldn’t for long. Just a few hours left. Good riddance to it, too.

He finished off his glass of whisky and gestured for another—another bottle, that was. Perhaps it was foolish, waiting for the end of the world in a little English pub. But what were the alternatives? Aziraphale wouldn’t be any _less _absent, whether Crowley stayed here or ran off to the furthest reaches of space. Any part of the universe was as good as the rest, which was no good at _all_, anymore.

All his planning and hoping, all the cleverness of his subterfuge and manipulation, his insurance—it meant nothing. He’d used up his holy water, and plainly the precautions he’d equipped Aziraphale with had been less than useless. Had the angel been unwilling to use them, or unable to? Did it matter, since the result was the same?

And then, in the midst of his morose ruminations, it was as if Aziraphale was there in front of him. Was his corporation more drunk than he’d given it credit for?

“I’m sorry,” he told the ghost of Aziraphale miserably. “I wasn’t there. I should have been there.”

“Crowley, what are you on about?” the apparition responded.

Crowley sat up abruptly. Not a ghost, then. And not a figment of his imagination; while it didn’t feel entirely like the angel, not like sitting in his real, solid presence, it was close.

“Did you go to Alpha Centauri?” the angel prompted.

“No,” Crowley mumbled, squinting at him, trying to understand. “Stuff happened.”

“Oh?”

“I lost my...Couldn’t find you. At the bookshop—”

Aziraphale’s nebulous form came alert. “The bookshop?” he asked, startled and intent.

“Yeah, it’s gone, it’s all burned. I’m s—Hang on, d’you mean you didn’t know?”

“No.” The angel sounded forlorn. “No, it was fine when I, ah, discorporated.”

“You bloody _what_?” Crowley demanded. That _did _explain a great deal, although it didn’t make him feel much better.

“Not on purpose!” Aziraphale said hastily, holding his hands. “It was the Metatron. I was _trying _to speak to God—” but Crowley interrupted him.

“—So you’re not...gone?”

“Gone? I don’t know if I’m any_where_, really, but I’m _here_, Crowley. How else would we be talking?”

Crowley shrugged and gestured vaguely at the bottle of whisky. Aziraphale gave him that exasperated look he did so well, knowing and indulgent, but then he straightened up, his expression growing serious.

“Oh, but if the bookshop burned, that means that _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies_,” the angel began, and before he could finish, Crowley was waving the scorched book at him.

“I’ve got it!” he said. “Souvenir.”

The angel was gone soon after, with repeated instructions to meet at Tadfield airbase. Crowley sobered himself up. The world was still going to end, in all likelihood, but if that was going to happen, he’d at least be with his friend.

* * *

The air was starting to scorch and burn, but Crowley only felt cold.

He envied the humans who would shortly be dying in their sleep, somewhere the ground wasn’t buckling, where the air did not smell of sulphur and fear. He envied the ones who would die having last told their families that they loved them, perhaps before heading off to work for the day.

_“It was nice knowing you.”_

He couldn’t lose these last moments to panic. He took in heaving breaths, fighting to keep control of his corporation, focusing on Aziraphale’s face—drawn with worry but still so tender.

At least their last week had been full of each other’s company. They’d spent so much of the last eleven years apart, trying to give this plan its best chance of success. Pointless. He’d fucked it up before even _conceiving_ of the plan.

_“No, Crowley. We can’t give up now!”_

His poor, sweet angel. He’d somehow found hope again, now—now, when all was hopeless.

He was grateful that he and Aziraphale had been able to make amends. They’d both been at their worst for so much of the week, snapping at each other in their pain. He’d had to watch Aziraphale circle closer to the brink of despair, and he’d only ever made it worse. When he’d found the burning bookshop, he’d been unable to think of anything beyond the fact that the last thing he’d said was that he _wouldn’t even think_ about Aziraphale.

_“We are fucked.”_

At least Crowley wouldn’t have to live with regret for very long.

He should be terrified. He was tired and felt filthy and he’d lost his car and he and his love were moments away from oblivion—but all he could think about, somehow, was that each Sunday, Aziraphale had left a little vase of flowers in Nanny Ashtoreth’s private quarters.

It had been the one thing he’d missed when he stopped working for the Dowlings.

_“Think of something,” Aziraphale urged him, adjusting his grip on his flaming sword. “Think of something now, or...or I’m never going to talk to you again.”_

Even now, after everything, Aziraphale believed in him, trusted that he’d come up with a plan. For a heartbeat, Crowley was brought back to the day they’d been fully honest with each other—just eleven years ago, after nearly all of human history had already passed them by—and felt that same warmth suffuse his very being. His terror fled.

_I haven’t spent nearly long enough loving you_, he thought, and he threw up his hands and stood, calling out to God Herself. What came out of his throat was a snarl, but his heart cried: _You can’t have given me this chance for no reason. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was short; I didn't want to spend too much time re-treading show territory. Last chapter will be posted this weekend!
> 
> Thank you for reading—I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
> 
> Thanks as ever to curlycrowley for the beta.


	11. 2019 AD, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know this scene: after Armageddon, an angel and a demon dine at the Ritz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! I'll see you at the end for closing notes. Enjoy!

The lunch was pleasantly prosaic. All around them was the chatter of other patrons, the music of the piano, the bustle of life. And Aziraphale, his dear Aziraphale who always seemed to know when Crowley needed to just sit and bask and not talk, chattered on about his adventures trying to find a receptive host body after leaving Crowley at the bar, and about the changes in the Ritz’s recipes over the years, and the new restaurant that had opened up just around the corner from the bookshop that they just _had _to try. It almost felt like the world hadn’t just ended and restarted.

“Is there anything else you’d like while we’re here, my dear?”

“‘M all set,” Crowley said lazily. “Unless you want to stretch these drinks out long enough that we move straight into dinner.”

Aziraphale laughed and shook his head. “Actually,” he said, “I was wondering if you mightn’t like to come back to the shop with me.”

A heady sensation, sweeter than any intoxication, flooded through Crowley as he considered the invitation. Gone in an instant was the feeling of complacent normalcy. Everything was different, now, and they could spend all the time they liked together. He breathed in deeply, feeling the electric pulse of excitement that ran through him as the _reality _of it all settled in.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale prompted.

_Oops_.

“Yeah, love to,” he said belatedly. “Sorry. Was just...thinking.”

“Excellent!”

They settled up and walked out into a supernaturally lovely late afternoon, and for a while they both stayed quiet. A sort of veil seemed to come over Crowley’s sense of everything, softening and heightening all the bright loveliness of a world shared with Aziraphale.

And then the angel paused, and when Crowley turned to look back at him, he was biting his lip and looking pensively at the demon.

And then he held out his hand, palm up, towards Crowley.

The sun was shining, there were people passing all around them on the sidewalks and in the streets, and Aziraphale watched him with his hand outstretched in invitation.

Crowley reached out and took the offered hand in one of his own, and they looked at each other a moment longer. Aziraphale nodded, and they resumed their stroll hand-in-hand.

It wasn’t far to the bookshop, but at that moment, Crowley wouldn’t have minded if they had to walk half the Earth, so long as it could be like this.

* * *

Several hours later, they’d taken up and abandoned a dozen inconsequential conversation topics. He’d shed his glasses and Aziraphale had hung up his jacket. At some point, the angel had somehow moved from his chair onto the couch and suddenly Crowley had become aware of just how close they were; he was fairly certain he could name exactly how many centimeters distant each part of their bodies were.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said abruptly, and Crowley looked up. The angel had been halfway through a rambling explanation of the den-building habits of beavers (and how _had _they gotten to that topic?), but now he was looking at Crowley intently.

“Yes, angel?”

“Would you mind if I sat more comfortably?”

There was his mind, working too slowly again. It seemed tremendously important that he answer both quickly and correctly.

“By all means,” he said as casually as he could, trying to sound like he definitely, for sure, knew what the angel was getting at. What did comfortable even _mean_? He was certain he was fine with it, whatever it was. Why would Aziraphale ask _him _for permission? Oh, was it that he was in his favorite spot and needed to move, maybe the light was better here so Aziraphale was used to being on this side—yes, that must be it, because now Aziraphale was moving towards him (very little space between them anywhere at all) and he really ought to move out of the way, but then no, maybe not, because now the angel had stopped moving and was right up next to him, pressed all along his side, and one of his arms was encircling Crowley’s shoulders.

Crowley melted into the softness and warmth of the angel’s nearness, slouching even further down so he could turn his head and hide is face in the curve of Aziraphale’s neck where it met his lovely broad shoulder. Before he knew it, he was being hugged fully, and he couldn’t quite return it but he burrowed in as close as he possibly could and hoped that amounted to the same thing.

“Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale said, and he was so close, nearly surrounding Crowley, that Crowley could feel the breath of his words ghost over his own ear and neck, could hear his voice from both the outside and inside, how it resonated through his body.

He couldn’t think what to say to an absurd thing like that, so instead he nuzzled in closer, drinking in the smell of Aziraphale’s skin and the feel of it against his own.

They sat like that for several heartbeats—Crowley could feel both his own and the angel’s. The only problem with sitting like this, he decided, was that he couldn’t look at Aziraphale, not properly, and Aziraphale was his very favorite sight to behold. Putting one of his hands on the angel’s waist to maintain an adequate amount of physical contact (which now seemed imperative, despite having been little more than a dream for millennia), he sat up a little so that he could see him.

“We did it,” he said, because it seemed that he ought to say _something_, and Aziraphale had so kindly, so bravely, taken several important steps today and it felt right that he should do so, too.

“Yes, my dear, we did. It’s all out in the open, and we’ve no need to hide anymore. You were magnificent.”

Crowley shook his head. “Bollixed the whole thing up, ‘swhat I did.”

“Ohh, don’t think that for a _minute_,” Aziraphale said, and he brought one hand up to the side of Crowley’s face and then ran his fingers through his hair. Crowley leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering closed as he gave himself over fully to enjoying the sensation. “Not for one moment, my clever love,” Aziraphale continued, his hand still moving. “You got us through to the other side.”

“_We_ did,” he corrected.

“No, Crowley, _you_ saved the world. Not with scheming, not with all our best-laid plans. Just by giving a human the information and the time to make a choice, there at the end when it really counted. That’s...why, that’s remarkable.”

Aziraphale adjusted his seat on the sofa, then gently maneuvered Crowley around until his legs were pulled over the angel’s lap and his back was supported by one of Aziraphale’s strong arms, so the demon could lean into him fully. Aziraphale’s other hand came to rest just above Crowley’s knees.

“I admit,” he continued, “I have other, more—personal—reasons, to be pleased with how things worked out, but that’s astounding.”

He placed a gentle kiss on Crowley’s temple. The warmth of it lingered.

“Do you know, that’s the most heroic thing I’ve ever heard of?”

“Nonsense,” Crowley scoffed, without real scorn. “I’m a—“

“—Ah ah ah, my dear. I don’t believe you get the ‘demon’ defense anymore.”

“Just because everything else changed doesn’t mean _that_ did.”

“You’re right, of course,” Aziraphale said patiently, and amusement hummed in his voice. “But Crowley, did you really think an _angel _wouldn’t know when someone is _praying_?”

Oh. _Oh. _

“Huh,” Crowley said.

“You prayed, and it _worked_. I would say that the normal rules don’t apply to us,” Aziraphale mused, “but I begin to wonder if the ‘normal rules’ really exist at all, at least how we’ve all conceived of them.”

“Angel,” Crowley said, lifting one of his hands to cover Aziraphale’s where it rested on his legs.

“Yes?”

“If you start philosophizing and theorizing right now, I _will_ leave.”

“Oh! Perish the thought,” Aziraphale exclaimed with a show of great horror. He took hold of Crowley’s hand and adjusted their positions so they were somehow even closer, their faces so very near, and a delightful heat coursed all through Crowley and his breath caught in his throat.

“Just not, y’know, the time for it,” he managed to say.

“I find that I quite agree,” the angel said, his voice quiet and deliciously low.

Aziraphale’s hand traced the back of Crowley’s own, then moved up, sliding along the length of his arm, caressing his neck and jaw, ‘til at last it came to cup the side of Crowley’s face.

“May I kiss you, my love?” the angel asked, but before he could even finish speaking, Crowley was nodding, was leaning forward, and together they closed what little distance remained.

The sensation of Aziraphale’s lips on his drove every other thought and perception from Crowley’s mind. All that mattered, all that there _was_, was the sweet softness of his friend’s nearness and the gentle insistence of his kiss. It was luxurious and slow, and Aziraphale followed it with another, and another after that, and the two of them settled and pressed close together like they had always meant to be like this.

Crowley couldn’t help but make a little sound, half a sigh of satisfaction, half a wordless plea for _more_, and Aziraphale’s hands tightened where the held him. Suddenly, the angel’s strong arms were lifting him, deftly arranging them both so that in a moment, Crowley was kneeling, straddled over his lap, fully facing Aziraphale and looking down at him. Then they were kissing again, and all the slowness was gone and replaced by a frenetic need. Aziraphale’s lips were still achingly soft, but there was an adamant force behind them.

Hesitantly, Crowley opened his lips just a little, to taste the angel and _oh_, he didn’t know if he had ever been alive and awake before this moment. Aziraphale’s tongue met his own and Crowley was grabbing at him, hands clutching and then releasing and clutching again—at his neck, his shoulders, his soft hair, anything and everything he could reach. Every sensation rocketed through him, sparking his corporation to aching need. As a matter of habit, Crowley did not go about fully equipped with all the accessories of the human body, but he began to wonder if he maybe ought to, or if all these dizzying feelings might utterly wreck him if he did.

That question didn’t matter, now, because Aziraphale’s hands were touching him all over, running through his hair with his fingernails scraping gently across Crowley’s scalp, then outlining Crowley’s shoulder blades with feather-light touches, then gripping Crowley’s hips and pulling them tight against him, leaving Crowley shivering and marveling at his great good luck.

“Amazing,” he breathed. Aziraphale made a little humming response that Crowley took to be agreement. “Can I touch you?” he asked, and Aziraphale hummed again, and Crowley set his eager fingers to parting the layers separating him from the angel.

First came the buttons on his waistcoat, which were loose with long wear. Crowley didn’t bother trying to remove the vest entirely; he just pushed it open and moved on to unbuttoning Aziraphale’s shirt while the angel (mercifully) undid the bowtie. These accomplished, Crowley was at last—at long, long last—able to run his hands over Aziraphale’s skin and kiss his neck. He thought he might burn from the heat of it, but it would be well worth it.

Aziraphale moaned, and Crowley felt it through where his lips pressed against the angel’s throat. On impulse, he bit down lightly—and promptly had cause to wonder if Aziraphale had actually Fallen after all, because surely no heavenly being could make a noise so decadent.

“I need you,” Aziraphale said.

“You have me,” he managed to respond. How could that not be obvious, with the angel’s arms wrapped around him like a vise? With one of his hands at the back of Aziraphale’s neck and his other tracing the contours of his side down to his gorgeous hips?

“No, I—“ Aziraphale sounded as lost to wonder as Crowley himself felt “—I don’t know what it is I need, only more of you.”

“Whatever it is, take it, it’s yours. I’m yours,” Crowley managed to say through the surge of vicious, possessive desire that overtook him at the _want_ in Aziraphale’s voice.

A sound like a growl rumbled through the angel’s chest, and then he was picking Crowley up and standing, lifting him, one hand firmly holding Crowley’s buttocks and his arm around Crowley’s lower back, and Crowley couldn’t do anything but cling to him and wrap his legs around the angel’s waist. He had a vague idea that this might be leading towards the sort of activities that benefited from certain anatomical elements, and even if they didn’t wind up being necessary, they certainly wouldn’t hurt; a moment later he gasped as his newly manifested cock sent all new sorts of sensations shooting through his body, redoubling his arousal.

Still kissing him and maneuvering them through his living area, Aziraphale chuckled.

“Oh you clever, _clever _boy,” Aziraphale said, his voice dark and joyful. Crowley couldn’t help but buck up against him, and then they were at the bed—the very bed where he'd spent so much time recovering, so close to Aziraphale and yet not nearly close enough—and Aziraphale was setting him down with impossible tenderness.

The angel didn’t waste time with fumbling at buttons; he let out a whisper of breath and Crowley shuddered as all his skin was exposed at once, and then he was nearly wrapped up in Aziraphale, with the angel under him and all the length of their bodies pressed together, skin to skin. Aziraphale’s cock was pressing into Crowley’s hip, his hands were running over Crowley’s back and arse, and he was kissing Crowley as if it was what he was brought into existence to do.

Crowley paused a moment and sat up, breathing heavily and looking at his glorious angel. He kept his hands roving over Aziraphale’s body, maintaining contact and hoping that would reassure the angel that everything was well. It was just that he needed to savor the moment and let the truth of it sink into every fiber of his being.

A profound joy, near to heartbreak, welled up in him, so that it was all he could do to breathe, to smile at his lover, to look at him through eyes suddenly wet with unshed tears. And Aziraphale was looking back at him; his smile was shy but his hands were anything but, and everything was perfect.

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered, as if he knew precisely what it was Crowley needed in that moment. Hearing it said out loud for the first time in eleven years, and the joy of _knowing _and _believing _it and of watching the angel’s face as he said it, met with all of the physical delights Crowley was currently feeling, and he felt as if his human body was barely sufficient to contain the force of all of it together.

“Oh, _angel_,” Crowley breathed, and he was too full of helpless adoration and gratitude to say more, so he bent back down and kissed Aziraphale for all he was worth.

There was so much they had not said throughout the ages. So much they could not have said. And Crowley was wonderfully determined to make up for that moving forward, to find all the words that could be said to sculpt out some semblance of all that he felt. But right at this moment, trying to put words to it all seemed too slow—when his angel was here beneath his hands, smiling and warm and delightfully eager. So he kissed him, and touched him, and hoped that it came close to being an adequate expression of what he felt. Aziraphale seemed to think so, for he too gave up on words, and all through that long night they cherished and worshiped each other and this thing they had built between them.

Not all the distant reaches of eternity would be enough time to drink his fill of this love, he knew, but he was certainly willing to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! 
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this story. I've had a blast with it; It's the longest _complete_ work of fanfiction I've ever done, and I'm glad to have it all posted. 
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! ♥
> 
> If you were hoping for more smut at the end, my apologies. I felt like an extended explicit scene at the very end of the story would've felt out of place. If you absolutely must see some more smut, may I suggest my fic [And I Would Hide My Face In You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21468769), which has (as the kids say) a happy ending. 
> 
> If you like missing-scenes-through-history that parallel or expand on canon, I've got a shorter multi-chapter fic from Aziraphale's POV, [The Angel of Eastgate: A Prologue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20439323/chapters/48491588). It was my first entry into this fandom. 
> 
> I've got a couple other GO fics (and more to come) which can all be found from my author page here. You can also come find me on tumblr at [thelasthomelyurl.](https://thelasthomelyurl.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Once again, my deep thanks go to curlycrowley ([here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) and on [tumblr](https://curlycrowley.tumblr.com/)) for the invaluable beta work.


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